NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The city of New Orleans is taking down a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, completing the southern city’s removal of four Confederate-related statues that some called divisive.
Lee commanded Confederacy armies against the United States in the Civil War, and is a revered figure among supporters of the old South. But the Louisiana city will take down a prominent statue of Lee on Friday.
City officials are trying to divorce New Orleans from symbols celebrating the Confederacy. Many Southern areas have done the same since nine black parishioners were fatally shot in 2015 by an avowed racist at a Charleston, South Carolina, church.
New Orleans has already removed statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard and a monument memorializing a deadly 1874 white-supremacist uprising.STORIES THAT OTHERS ARE CLICKING ON –
- Lakeland boy, 2, killed by dresser that fell on him
- Owner of SUV in Pasco hit-and-run crash arrested for filing false police report
- Local Parenting Experts: How to survive the summer with your kids
- Navy man who crashed into Times Square was based in Jacksonville
- WATCH: Driver caught on camera hitting child, driving away in Holiday
- Visitors meet April the giraffe and baby in person
- Police officer suffers fentanyl overdose from drug call
