SIXTY FIVE years ago, one of the South’s most celebrated writers, William Faulkner, wrote that “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.” A one-time denizen of New Orleans, Faulkner might have been foretelling the public debate that played out in the city after Mitch Landrieu, the mayor, proposed to take down four civic monuments with roots in white supremacy last summer.
The issue is finally settled; sort of. After more than seven months of acrimonious discussion, capped by a council vote and a couple of last-ditch legal challenges, the path is finally clear for the monuments to come down.
Getting to this point has not been easy. Somehow, a series of stone markers that most people in the city paid little heed to before the mayor’s proposal have been transformed—depending on one’s politics—into outrageous symbols of fascism that have to go; or vital pieces of city history that must be defended against the forces of political correctness.
The dust-up began after a racially motivated mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina in June last year, when a young white man killed nine black parishioners at the...Continue reading
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