Removed Confederate Monuments in New Orleans
In the aftermath of the mass shooting at a Black church in Charleston in 2015, symbols associated with the Confederacy faced renewed scrutiny throughout the U.S. and calls for their removal became commonplace, as did public protests and anti-monument graffiti. For many New Orleans residents, monuments to prominent men of the Confederacy glorified slavery, racism, white supremacy, and oppression, and should no longer occupy prominent places within the city.
In 2015, pressed by these protests, generations of organizing by Black New Orleanians, and the Take 'Em Down NOLA Coalition, New Orleans City Council voted in a 6-1 vote to remove four Confederate monuments. All were removed in 2017. While the statues are gone, this tour of their former locations and empty pedestals speak to the stories of their removal and the prominent and visible locations they held in the city for over a hundred years.
Access: Biking or streetcar
Distance: ~5.5 miles, ~40 minutes biking
Tips: Be aware that this is a tour of former locations of monuments, the actual statues are no longer on public display.
If you are planning to take the streetcar to the stops on this tour, start by taking the St. Charles streetcar, which circles Harmony Circle. Get off at Canal and walk to the second stop, the former location of the Battle of Liberty Place monument. Then board the Canal streetcar and ride until Norman C. Francis Parkway. Get off and walk to the second stop, the former location of the Jefferson Davis Monument. Then walk up Canal to Carrollton, where you can catch the City Park streetcar on Carrollton to the final tour stop, the former location of the Gen. Beauregard statue.
Stories 5
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