New Orleans leaders voted Thursday to remove four Confederate monuments that have lined the city’s streets for more than a century.
The city council voted six-to-one in support of taking down the Jefferson Davis, General Robert E. Lee, the Battle of Liberty Place and PGT Beauregard statues. The undertaking is expected to cost $170,000, according to a statement by city officials.
City Council President Jason Williams compared the decision to the cutting of an “umbilical cord” between the city and its pro-slavery past.
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, brother of former Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, commended the ruling and signed the ordinance into law immediately following the vote.
The meeting came six months to the day after a mass shooting at a historically black church in Charleston, S.C., left nine congregation members dead. The suspect, Dylann Roof, was charged with multiple hate crime charges.
Following the shooting, the New Orleans mayor’s office began discussing whether the Confederate flag and other related items were appropriate to display on government property.
The monuments will be removed in coming weeks and the statues will be stored in a warehouse until a new permanent location can be found.
