Eastern, after a small group of protesters departed from the monument and a wave of officers with the New Orleans Police Department barricaded points of entry to the monument, The Times-Picayune reported.
"Of the four we will remove, this statue is perhaps the most blatant affront to the values that make America and New Orleans strong today", Landrieu said.
"If there was ever a statue that needed to be taken down, it's that one", said Mayor Mitch Landrieu.
The national conversation began in earnest shortly after shooter Dylann Roof toured plantations and confederacy monuments in the lead-up to his mass-killing of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina.
As with the battle over the Confederate flag in states like SC, many call the monuments a piece of the slave-owning past of the Southern states, others defend the as a piece of history that should be protected.
Landrieu declined to disclose a timetable for the removal of the other three monuments because of an "intense level of threats and intimidations" to the hired contractors who are being paid with private money. And, yes, the Battle of Liberty Place also happened.
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"Many people argue that honoring the Confederacy is really about honoring Southern heritage, not about defending white supremacy", wrote German Lopez, in Vox. The Liberty Monument was made in 1891 to honor the Crescent City White League, an organization created in 1874 to turn Republicans out of office and intimidate freedmen from voting and political organizing. "This is not a naive quest to solve all our problems at once".
Landrieu, a white Democrat, proposed the monuments' removal and rode to victory twice with overwhelming support from the city's black residents. That's why the removal of Liberty Place was done in secret, Mayor Mitch Landrieu said.
The statue will be stored in a city warehouse until a museum or park can be found where it can be placed in its proper context, city officials have said.
While the City Council voted 6-1 to remove the statues back in 2015, plans have been continuously delayed due to legal issues and insufficient funds. This is about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile - and most importantly- choose a better future.
Statues commemorating Confederate Gens. The city is split over the action, which aims to eliminate symbols commonly associated with racism and white supremacy.
Critics say the Confederate monuments should remain because they are part of the city's history. Police officers stood guard both nearby and watching from the rooftops of nearby buildings while contractors worked until the monument was ultimately finished being removed at 5:35 a.m.
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