"Jefferson Davis is the only president we have ever had", a man who identified himself only as Allen and as the leader of the Confederates group said, standing among 20 or so supporters, many of whom were dressed in Civil War-era garb. The Davis statue was the second of the four monuments to be removed in the Crescent City.
A committee member sued on Monday to stop the city from removing a statue of Confederate States Army General P.G.T. Beauregard.
The first of these, the Liberty Monument erected in 1891, was pulled down last month.
Under a clear, moonlit sky Wednesday night protesters on both sides of New Orleans' Confederate monument debate gathered around makeshift fences enclosing a statue of Jefferson Davis that was slated for imminent removal.
New Orleans City Council, now majority African-American, voted 6-1 to remove the four landmarks in 2015.
Dozens of police officers arrive as demonstrators both for and against the removal of confederate era monuments, wait for the impending removal of the Jefferson Davis statue in New Orleans, Thursday, May 11, 2017. If we don't want to be forever held back by our crushing history of institutional racism, it's time to relegate these monuments to their proper place. The monument's supporters at that point watched mostly in silence, some holding up Confederate banners. Directly across from Jefferson Davis Monument site, just off of Canal and North Jefferson Davis Parkway, is a monument honoring Confederate Lt. Colonel Charles Didier Dreux, Jr.
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Workers who showed up to work on the removal were again shrouded with masks and dark clothing as the city has said there have been threats made against those participating in the removal. Mayor Landrieu says the removals are to make "New Orleans more diverse, but Landrieu can not be inclusive, tolerant, or diverse when he is erasing a very specific and undeniable part of New Orleans' history", said Pierre McGraw, President of the Monumental Task Committee.
The removal came as some Southern states celebrated Confederate Memorial Day, although Louisiana is not among them. In June 2015, self-proclaimed white supremacist Dylann Roof shot and killed nine people at an all-black church in Charleston, South Carolina.
"The monuments are an aberration", New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said in a recent interview with the Associated Press. However, that doesn't mean we must valorize the ugliest chapters, as we do when we put the Confederacy on a pedestal - literally - in our most prominent public places. "We should not be afraid to confront and reconcile our past", he said. The term "Jefferson Davis" was also the top-trending term across the USA on Thursday morning.
Davis lived in New Orleans after the Civil War and died there in 1889. The statue was first unveiled in 1911.
In 2004, the words "slave owner" were painted on the base of the monument. "They got the workers who are taking it down dressed in black jackets, helmets and their faces are covered, to us that's cowardice", one person there told CNN affiliate WVUE-TV.
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