National Confederate Day is celebrated by a few states and the exact day varies from state to state, but Mississippi and Alabama celebrate it today: the last Monday of April. Meanwhile, New Orleans has chosen to celebrate in a different way: by dismantling four Confederate monuments throughout the city. NOLA Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced as such (at 3:30am!).
July 2015, we promised to move four Confederate statues that do not represent diversity of #NOLA. Today, we begin. https://t.co/xAu7BrDACR
— Mitch Landrieu (@MitchLandrieu) April 24, 2017
As you might expect, not everyone welcomed the removal, sparking some heated discussions at the site of removal. USA Today even reports that workers who dismantled the monument wore masks to hide their identity.
Pretty intense argument has broken out at Liberty Place. People in crowd start chanting 'there was no vote.' pic.twitter.com/EMMYkGyxbS
— New Orleans Advocate (@theadvocateno) April 24, 2017
Confederate monuments have been a source of controversy since, oh, let’s say, the Civil War. While the pro-Confederate camp says that the stars and bars are a part of Southern legacy, others note that the flag was birthed of a movement that was unequivocally on the side of slavery, racism and white supremacy. For many people, that’s not a legacy worth enshrining in our cities some 150 years after that movement went belly up.