Illustration by L. J. Bridgman. From M. Thompson (1888). The Story of Louisiana. Boston: Berwick & Smith.
Following a trend in many Southern states to take down the Confederate battle flag, the City Council of New Orleans voted on 17 December 2015 to remove four monuments to the Confederacy from the city’s landscape. Three of those statues honour General Robert E. Lee, General Beauregard and Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy. The fourth monument is an obelisk celebrating the Battle of Liberty Place, when members of the Crescent City White League attacked the New Orleans Metropolitan Police in their effort to overthrow a biracial Republican government and a black-dominated legislature. The proposal was introduced by a majority of City Council members. But opponents to took it to the Federal Appeals Court, while white supremacists started threatening those sponsoring the proposal and the contractor hired for the job.
The issue of slavery still plagues the lives of the inhabitants of New Orleans.
