FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Teresa Candori
212-558-5362 | tcandori@nul.org
NEW ORLEANS, LA – National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial and Erika McConduit, President and CEO of the Urban League of Louisiana, issued the following statement in response to the removal today of the Jefferson Davis monument in New Orleans:
“Symbols honoring the leaders of the bloody campaign to defend slavery have served only to divide and demean our nation and our city for more than a century now. Efforts to remove such symbols from public places of honor in New Orleans date at least as far back as the early 1980’s when Mayor Dutch Morial sought to move the Liberty Monument honoring white supremacists who attacked Black police and militia members.
“New Orleans has a rich, diverse history, with many figures worthy of honor and respect. The Civil War and slavery are part of that history, and it is paramount that we remember those events and people through a clear lens, not one clouded by misdirected reverence and revisionism.