Lt. Gov calls for state to display Confederate Monuments
1st May 2017 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
Just days prior to the removal of the Liberty Place obelisk, Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser doubled down on his calls for President Donald Trump to designate the Confederate statues in New Orleans as National Monuments. He added, though, in an exclusive to The Louisiana Weekly, that if the statues of Lee, Davis, and Beauregard should come down, that he would advocate placing the Confederate monuments on state property.
“I think if we lose this battle, and I’m not ready to give up as of yet, but I think when and if they do come down, I personally will make a plea to the city to give them to the state, and then we can decide where is the best place to put them,” Nungesser told this newspaper.
The Lt. Governor oversees the Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism, and hence nearly every state park and museum. In this context, noting the monuments’ historic nature, Nungesser saw their display to the public as critical to telling the story of Louisiana.
In an interview with the daily paper on Friday, Mayor Mitch Landrieu appeared open to this approach. “[T]he state has a much bigger budget and a much bigger swath of land and if they want to curate these things, they certainly have the time, money and space to do it,” Landrieu said. “So instead of telling us what to do with our land, maybe they ought to … put them wherever they want to.”
Still, Lt. Governor Nungesser told The Weekly that he still hopes President Trump will get involved to keep the remaining monuments where they are. “The past President got involved in naming some things national monuments to keep them from being developed, and so it’s not unprecedented to name some things a national monument.”
If not, Nungesser expressed a determination for the Lt. Governor’s office to file suit on the monuments issue—if the Attorney General’s office will represent him. John Dunlap, the New Orleans-based attorney who has handled much of the monument litigation, has said that the current legal documents could be used by the Attorney General, are in review, and nearly ready for court filings.
Nungesser made his remarks, not knowing that just a couple of days later, the Liberty Place monument would come down in the dead of night.
Sunday evening, The Louisiana Weekly began getting calls that the Jefferson Davis monument could come down before daybreak. Rumors flew across town. In response, members of the Monumental Task committee mounted an impromptu all-night vigil to defend the statue in Mid-City, gathering two dozen of their membership at the last minute. It just turned out that they assembled at the wrong place.
Rather than disinterring the Confederate President from his prominent Mid-City perch, Mayor Mitch Landrieu opted to fell the far more controversial Battle of Liberty Place Monument, pulling it from its obscure corner near Canal Place in the early hours of Monday morning.
The 1891 obelisk and inscribed base honors the reconstruction-era pitched gun-battle on Canal Street. The Crescent City White League and its allies in the Orleans Sheriff’s office faced off against the Metropolitan Police who supported the pro-Civil Rights Reconstruction “Carpetbagger” government.
Monument supporter Hy McEnery rushed from Jeff Davis Parkway to Liberty Place corner. Arriving at 3 a.m., he observed the high level of security around the cranes and workmen—from snipers on the roof of Canal Place to NOPD officers and city workers in bullet proof vests.
It remains unconfirmed whether Cuzan Services LLC, the sole bidder to remove the other three Confederate monuments of Robert E. Lee, P.G.T. Beauregard and Jefferson Davis, performed the task. They may not have been needed, despite the city’s promise to have qualified personnel to remove all of the monuments. Unlike the delicate statues, the Liberty Monument was constructed in the same manner as a funeral marker. Built of study granite, the obelisk and its base have been moved repeatedly in the past.
Its first migration came due road construction work on Canal Street in the late 1980s. The monument was moved from its prominent location on the New Orleans’ main street and placed in a city warehouse. How-ever, the city refused to put the monument back up until it was sued. Since federal funds paid for the road work, a Federal Court consent decree directed that the Liberty Monument be re-erected, but the ruling did not specify a specific location.
The then-Mayor opted to place the obelisk in a little visited corner, behind the Audubon Aquarium and facing the parking garage in what would become Canal Place. One 1993 modification was made to the Liberty Monument, however. Upon the base, an inscription had been added in 1932 declaring that the Yankees withdrew federal troops and “recognized white supremacy in the South” after the White League challenged Louisiana’s biracial government.
As part of the 1993 move, a granite slab was placed over this quote with a new inscription, stating the obelisk honors “Americans on both sides” who died and that the conflict “should teach us lessons for the future.” The granite covering then listed the names of the Black and White members of the metropolitan police who died defending the pro-Civil Rights Reconstruction “Carpetbagger” government.
Over the past few months, some who protested the monument, not knowing the purpose of this modification, had actually smashed the 1993 granite base covering – just as they spray-painted “Black Lives Matter” on the other side of the base of the obelisk. Put another way, some anonymous Black Lives Matter supporters smashed a panel installed by a Black Mayor of New Orleans to honor Black cops who died fighting white supremacy. So confused the emotions in the fight against the confederate monuments have become.
McEnery argued to The Weekly that the complex historical story of the Battle of Liberty Place should have given the city pause before taking the obelisk and its base down. The Great-Grandson of John McEnery, he observed that the Battle of Liberty Place was triggered by the Reconstruction Government’s refusal to accept the results of a democratic election where all voted, including the newly enfranchised Black population.
The violent protests came when his ancestor was denied the Governorship after winning the 1872 election. The refusal of Republican William Pitt Kellogg to surrender power to John McEnery and the Democrats led to the September 14, 1874 insurrection. The White League, the 5000 strong paramilitary arm of the Democratic Party, entered New Orleans—then the state capitol—to seat McEnery and his legislative allies. They defeated the Metropolitan Police in a gun-fight, met in session, but eventually disbursed when Federal Occupation troops arrived.
Nevertheless, John McEnery would formally take office as governor a year later when the Union occupation ended after President Rutherford Hayes assumed office. His descendent Hy McEnery argued that the Liberty Monument stands to remember those who died defending the democratic will of the majority. “We need a proper understanding of the events leading up to the Battle of Liberty Place,” he maintained.
Critics of the monument counter that the reactionary Bourbon Democratic State Governments which followed the Reconstruction GOP Administrations – in the aftermath of the Battle of Liberty Place – eroded nearly every civil right awarded after the Civil War, ultimately resulting the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case that upheld the Bourbon’s “Separate but Equal” law. The Battle of Liberty Place led to Louisiana apartheid, they contend. Moreover, McEnery’s victory occurred amidst large scale Black voter intimidation. Whether that swung the 1872 election is immaterial. Honoring that moment as a ‘defense of democracy’ makes no sense.
Many of the supporters of keeping the Confederate Monuments privately agree than the Liberty monument is less defensible. Unlike Beauregard, a native New Orleanian who advocated Civil Rights and racial reconciliation after the Civil War; Lee, who pled for peaceful reconciliation of North and South after Appomattox; and Davis, who died in this city after years of telling young people to loyally serve the victorious Union, the Liberty Monument enjoys no such redeeming epilogues.
Some City Hall insiders have even postulated in recent days that Landrieu, successful in removing the least defended of the Confederate monuments, literally and figuratively, might actually put off the higher profile removals of Lee, Beauregard, and Davis. These insiders contend that Mayor has fulfilled his promise, and now has little to politically gain by unseating the others.
Others closer to the Mayor contend the opposite. “Mitch is stubborn and determined,” one told The Louisiana Weekly privately. “He will not stop until they all come down.”
Landrieu said much the same on Friday, expressing his wish that Lee Circle become “Tricentennial Circle,” with fountains and statues of prominent players in New Orleans history, and Beauregard Circle at City Park should display a relevant piece of public art that welcomes visitors to the New Orleans Museum of Art at the end of the entrance drive.
The Davis statue has been offered to Beauvoir, Jefferson Davis’ former home in Biloxi, Mississippi, which now serves as a museum, as well as the Smithsonian Institution. Washing-ton and Lee University was offered the commanding Confederate General. Neither have accepted.
This article originally published in the May 1, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
