New Orleans’ residents on edge as monument decision looms
21st November 2016 · 0 Comments
With anti-Trump protesters taking to the streets of the CBD and the French Quarter, several acts of vandalism to the Robert E. Lee monument, Gallier Hall and the Confederate Museum, the City of New Orleans and residents are understandably on edge as the Federal Court of Appeals inches closer to rendering a decision regarding the fate of three statues of Confederate leaders.
The appeals court listened to arguments from both sides seven weeks ago amid a massive demonstration outside the federal courthouse and just days after Take ‘Em Down NOLA held a major protest in Jackson Square during which supporters attempted to pull down the iconic French Quarter statue of former U.S. President Andrew Jackson.
Seven people arrested during the September incident were scheduled to appear in court last Thursday.
Loyola University law professor and civil rights attorney Bill Quigley told Nola.com that residents and elected officials should be prepared for even larger protests and even greater scrutiny from the national media in the wake of the appellate court ruling.
“I think the election has given new life and energy to fringe groups and certainly it’s been celebrated by the KKK, other racist groups and other so-called heritage groups as well,” Quigley said. “I don’t think it’s fair to say that all the people who want to keep the statues up fall into that category, but a number of them do. And those people have been emboldened by the presidential election,”
Since the New Orleans City Council voted in December to remove the statues of Robert E. Lee, P,G.T. Beauregard and Jefferson Davis and the Battle of Liberty Place monument from public spaces across the city, there have been a series of unsuccessful legal challenges to the Council vote, two unsuccessful legislative efforts to block the removal of the monuments and a series of death threats against a Baton Rouge-based contractor that prompted him to back out of the statue-removal project. One of the groups that opposes the relocation of the statues, Save Our Circle, has also spearheaded a telephone campaign that urged like-minded individuals to call prospective bidders and discourage them from pursuing the contract.
After concealing the names of prospective bidders from the public, the City of New Orleans decided to close the bidding process until the future of the statues is decided in federal court,
It has already been determined that the fate of the Battle of Liberty Place monument will be handled separately from that of the other three statues targeted for removal by the City of New Orleans.
Quigley told Nola.com that President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of ultraconservative activist Steve Bannon as his chief White House strategist and the emboldened Trump supporters may fuel anger on both sides as the people of New Orleans await the appellate court decision.
“I think they can’t help but be energized by the election and I certainly would expect they’re going to make their feelings known,” Quigley said, “There’s going to be a lot going on once they start coming down.”
Quigley acknowledged that the appellate court could side with those who want the monuments to remain where they are despite reports that said the panel’s questions appeared to favor the City of New Orleans in the ongoing battle. He said such a decision would potentially lead to large protests such as those that came on the heels of the police killing of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge on July 5.
Either way, Quigley said, the appellate court ruling will likely spark massive demonstratives and attract national attention,
NOPD spokesman Tyler Gamble told Nola.com last week that New Orleans police will be prepared to maintain law and order regardless of the court ruling.
“When we had the protest in Jackson Square, there were four groups protesting,” Gamble said. “We try to be in touch with demonstrators and organizers to have a safe space to do what they have to do.”
“Nobody really knows what will happen if the court decides to allow the Confederate monuments to stay where they are,” the Rev, Raymond Brown, a community activist and president of National Action Now, told The Louisiana Weekly. “The federal government and the federal courts are supposed to represent all of us, not just white supremacists and those who see nothing wrong with racially offensive monuments in a majority-Black city in the 21st century.”
Before the Dec, 2015 New Orleans City Council vote on the Confederate monuments, council members Stacy Head and Latoya Cantrell accused New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu of playing political games and making the monuments an issue when it was not something the community cared about before he brought it up.
In truth, removal of these racially offensive monuments is an issue that Black residents have been talking about since the early days of the 20th century.
Some of those who support the efforts of the City of New Orleans and groups like Take ‘Em Down NOLA to relocate the statues have accused the Landrieu administration of dragging its feet with regard to removing the monuments, saying that the City should have taken them down immediately after the council vote.
This article originally published in the November 21, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
