Amid death threats, New Orleans dismantles Civil War statues at night
Tensions are running high as the city of New Orleans removes four statues of representatives of the Confederate side in the Civil War. In fact, the monuments are being taken down in the middle of the night to mute conflict.
On May 17, the third statue was removed just shortly after 3 a.m. with contractors removing the monument of Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard wearing face coverings and bulletproof vests after the city received death threats.
"These monuments were put in place during the Jim Crow era to assert that whites were in control of the politics of the south," says Malcolm Suber, an organizer with Take 'Em Down NOLA.
Suber has worked for decades to have the statues removed and is glad to see them go — although he would have liked to see it happen in daylight, as a celebration.
"We think that this was a kowtow to the racist and white supremacists who came to town brandishing a weapon and making threats," Suber tells The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti of the nighttime removal.
Suber does not believe that removing the statues erases part of the country's history.
In Halifax, some are advocating for the removal of the statue of Edward Cornwallis, one of the city's founders — but also an advocate for the extermination of Mi'kmaq people.
"He's a symbol of barbarity from the past," says Mi'kmaq historian Daniel Paul.
"You're not taking him out of history books, people still read about him. But you show me a plaque anywhere around there that says that that man tried to exterminate the Mi'kmaq people — it's not there."
Around the world, statues have been toppled from Baghdad to Ukraine to — recently — Venezuela.
Kirk Savage, who has looked at the history of monument removal, says the events fall into two broad categories.
"[In some cases] you're talking about regime change. You see a lot of anger," Savage says, author of Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America.
"[Other statues are] monuments to white supremacy, which is something that is ongoing and and we haven't yet grappled with or found a solution to… It's an ongoing fight," he tells Tremonti.
Savage says that even if most of us walk by statues in the street without noticing them, they remain powerful symbols.
"They carry a lot of authority," explains Savage.
"[Statues] seem to represent the kind of popular will of the community. And that's why they're so divisive now, and remain so important."
Listen to the full segment at the top of this web post.
This segment was produced by The Current's Samira Mohyeddin and Halifax network producer Mary-Catherine McIntosh.