New Orleans City Council votes to remove Confederate monuments

The New Orleans City Council voted Thursday 6-1 to remove four monuments to the Confederacy — an obelisk dedicated to the Battle of Liberty Place and statues of Gen. Robert E. Lee, Confederate president Jefferson Davis, and Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard.

The vote took place after several months of debate; Mayor Mitch Landrieu introduced the proposal to remove the monuments in June, one week after nine black parishioners were killed at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Landrieu said the City Council made a "courageous decision to turn a page in our divisive past," and the monuments "do not now, nor have they ever reflected the history, the strength, the richness, the diversity, or the soul of who we are as a people and a city."

The mayor's office said it will cost an estimated $170,000 to take the monuments down, using private money. With the exception of the Battle of Liberty Place obelisk, which is under a federal court order, the monuments are expected to come down within the next few days, The Washington Post reports.

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