Robert E. Lee Monument (New Orleans, Louisiana)

Robert E. Lee Monument
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
The monument in 2015
Location	Lee Cir. (900–1000 blocks St. Charles Ave.), New Orleans, Louisiana
Coordinates
Built	1884
Built by	Roy, John
NRHP Reference #	91000254
Added to NRHP	March 19, 1991

Robert E. Lee Monument, closeup

The Robert E. Lee Monument in New Orleans, Louisiana is a historic monument dedicated to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. The monument was included by New Orleans Magazine in June 2011 as one of the city's "11 important statues".

History

The monument was dedicated in 1884 at Tivoli Circle on St. Charles Avenue. Dignitaries present at the dedication on February 22—George Washington's birthday—included former Confederate President Jefferson Davis, two daughters of General Lee, and Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard. Efforts to build the statue began after Lee's death in 1870 by the Robert E. Lee Monumental Association, which by 1876 had raised the $36,400 needed. New York sculptor Alexander Doyle was hired to sculpt the statue.

The Lee statue "faces north where, as local lore has it, he can always look in the direction of his military adversaries."

A racial confrontation occurred at the monument on January 19, 1972, the birthday of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Addison Roswell Thompson, a perennial segregationist candidate for governor of Louisiana and mayor of New Orleans, and his friend and mentor, Rene LaCoste (not to be confused with the French tennis player René Lacoste), clashed with a group of Black Panthers. Then eighty-nine years of age and a former opera performer in New York City, LaCoste was described as "dapper in seersucker slacks and navy sports jacket" and with a "white mustache and goatee" resembling Colonel Harland Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken. LaCoste and Thompson dressed in Klan robes for the occasion and placed a Confederate flag at the monument. The Black Panthers began throwing bricks at the pair, but police arrived in time to prevent serious injury. At the time of the Thompson/LaCoste confrontation, David Duke, then an active Klansman who served from 1989 to 1992 in the Louisiana House of Representatives, had been among those jailed in New Orleans for "inciting to riot".

Removal controversy

On June 24, 2015, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu acknowledged the impact of the June 2015 Charleston church shooting, but credited a 2014 conversation with New Orleans jazz ambassador Wynton Marsalis for his decision to call for the removal of the Lee statue and renaming of Lee Circle and other city memorials to Confederate slaveholders.

As part of a sixty-day period for public input, two city commissions called for the removal of four monuments associated with the Confederacy: the Lee statue, statues of Jefferson Davis and P.G.T. Beauregard, and an obelisk commemorating the "Battle of Liberty Place". Governor Bobby Jindal opposed the removals.

On December 15, 2015, Wynton Marsalis explained his reasons for advocating removal in the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

"When one surveys the accomplishments of our local heroes across time from Iberville and Bienville, to Andrew Jackson, from Mahalia Jackson, to Anne Rice and Fats Domino, from Wendell Pierce, to John Besh and Jonathan Batiste, what did Robert E. Lee do to merit his distinguished position? He fought for the enslavement of a people against our national army fighting for their freedom; killed more Americans than any opposing general in history; made no attempt to defend or protect this city; and even more absurdly, he never even set foot in Louisiana. In the heart of the most progressive and creative cultural city in America, why should we continue to commemorate this legacy?"

On December 17, 2015, the New Orleans City Council voted to remove four statues from public display, among them the statue of Robert E. Lee located in Lee Circle. Four organizations immediately filed a lawsuit in federal court the day of the decision and the City administration has agreed that no monument removals will take place before a court hearing scheduled for January 14, 2016.

In January 2016, David Mahler, a contractor who had been hired by the City of New Orleans to remove the four statues including the statue of Robert E. Lee located in Lee Circle backed out of his contract with the city after he, his family, and employees began receiving death threats. According to authorities in Baton Rouge, early on the morning of January 19, 2016 morning the Fire Department found a 2014 Lamborghini Huracan ablaze in a parking lot behind David Mahler's company, H&O Investments, LLC. The car, belonging to Mahler and valued at $200,000 was completely destroyed.

On March 4, 2016 State Senator Beth Mizell of Franklinton in Washington Parish filed a bill in the Legislature seeking to block local governments in Louisiana from removing Confederate monuments and other commemorative statues without State permission. The Mizell bill was unexpectedly assigned by Senate President John Alario, a Democrat from the City of Westwego in Jefferson Parish, to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee dooming the bill where of the 9 members five are African-American Democrats, led by committee chairperson Karen Carter Peterson of New Orleans, rather than to the thought by many more correct State Senate Education Committee composed of six Republicans and two Democrats.

On March 25, 2016, a three-judge panel of the United States 5th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously issued an injunction preventing the City of New Orleans from proceeding forward with the removal of the Robert E. Lee Monument and statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard while suit brought by the Monumental Task Committee and other groups opposed to the removal of the Lee Monument, and Davis and Beuregard statues is heard in federal district court. The decision of the Court of Appeals reversed that ruling of United States District Court Judge Carl Barbier rendered January 26, 2016 denying the motion of the plaintiffs for a preliminary injunction prohibiting the City of New Orleans from proceeding forward with plans to remove the Robert E. Lee Monument and statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard pending a final judgment on the merits of their suit in opposition to the removal of the monuments.

On April 6, 2016 the bill of State Senator Beth Mizell of Franklinton to block local governments in Louisiana from removing Confederate monuments and other commemorative statues without State permission was rejected by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee on a straight 5-4 party line vote. Now that the Mizell bill has been voted down in committee, State Rep. Thomas Carmody of Shreveport is expected to move forward in the Louisiana House of Representatives with his own pro-monuments bill, House Bill 944, filed by him on March 30, 2016.

Further reading

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