Nola Mayor Talks Confederate Monuments On National TV
The regional, and at times hyper-local, debate over Confederate Monuments is about to go under the National Microscope.
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu will discuss why several Confederate monuments were removed from his city on 60 Minutes Sunday.
The Advocate reports that the interview will show where the monuments are currently held in storage and what will become of those four monuments. A nonprofit group will collect public input on what should replace the statue of Robert E. Lee that was removed from Lee Circle.
This will be one of the first times Louisiana has taken the national stage on the topic since the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. That rally is responsible for three deaths, including two state troopers, and the murder of Heather Heyer, along with nearly 40 other injuries.
Heyer was murdered by Nazi sympathizer James Alex Fields, who ran her down with his car. Fields was attempting to defend a statue of Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park when he killed Heyer.
Locally, the Confederate Monument in front of the Caddo Courthouse could potentially be removed as early as this summer. After a recent victory in favor of the Caddo Parish Commission, the ownership over the land that the monument sits on is all but settled legally, so now the question is when, and where, to move it. Here's more on where the Caddo Monument case sits from Caddo Commissioner Steven Jackson: