New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said Friday that he supported removing Confederate statues in his city because it gives prominence to a negative time.
“You can’t change history by taking a statue down. You’re just moving it to another place,” Mr. Landrieu, a Democrat, said on CNN.
“These particular monuments occupy prominent places and reflect only four years of New Orleans’ 300-year history, crowding out all of the other history,” he said.
Mr. Landrieu wrote a book titled “In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History” about his thought process regarding the removal of the statues.
Confederate monuments became a heated topic of conversation last summer when a protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, erupted into violence leaving one person dead. White nationalists, including neo-Nazis and Klansmen, had gathered to protest the removal of a Confederate statue and were met with counterprotesters. The incident sparked a nationwide call for the removal of such statues across the country.
• Sally Persons can be reached at spersons@washingtontimes.com.
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