 The monument in 2015 | |
 | |
| 29°58′11″N90°05′39″W / 29.96985°N 90.09427°W | |
| Location | New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Dismantled date | 2017 |
The Jefferson Davis Monument, also known as the Jefferson Davis Memorial, was an outdoor sculpture and memorial to Jefferson Davis, installed at Jeff Davis Parkway and Canal Street in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States from 1911 to 2017. [1]
Richmond artist Edward Virginius Valentine was the sculptor of the monument. A stone marker about 20 feet behind the sculpture reads: Site of Jefferson Davis Monument/Dedicated June 3rd 1908. [2]
The statue itself was dedicated on February 22, 1911. The ceremony included a mass of schoolchildren dressed in red, white, and blue making a formation of a Confederate flag, and a speech by then-Louisiana Governor Jared Y. Sanders Sr., followed by the children singing "Dixie". [3] Former Confederate officer Bennett H. Young also spoke at the ceremony. [3] [4] The date of dedication was said to correspond with the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederate States of America, though the actual anniversary would have been four days earlier since Davis's inauguration was on 18 February 1861.
Since at least 2003 the statue was the subject of frequent vandalism. [5] [6]
After the Charleston church shooting in 2015, a concerted effort was launched to remove several monuments from public spaces in New Orleans, with Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell citing the Jefferson Davis Monument as "the one that really has some momentum around it." [7] A grassroots activist group, Take Em Down NOLA, campaigned for their removal. [8]
By decision of the New Orleans City Council in December 2015, the statue was ordered to be removed [9] and stored in a warehouse until another location was found. [10] Pro-monument supporters bearing Confederate flags and open-carrying firearms, surrounded the monument for weeks. [11] [12] They were confronted by locals who supported removal, and confrontations grew more heated until the City cordoned off the area. [13] [14]
The New Orleans local chapter of the Green Party of Louisiana issued a statement in support of the removal. [15]
On May 11, 2017, the statue of Davis was removed, on order from the City, despite the presence of dozens of protesters and supporters. [17] Those removing the statue wore masks and helmets to hide their identities and the company name on their truck was hidden. [18] After the statue's removal, the pedestal and base were also removed, leaving only the foundation. The cost of removing the statue was split between private donations and the City of New Orleans. [19] [20]
The statue was placed in storage at an undisclosed location. The City stated that it would be relocated, but no specific plans were announced. [21] The parkway was renamed for former Xavier University of Louisiana president Norman C. Francis in 2020. [22] [23]
Monument Avenue is a tree-lined grassy mall dividing the eastbound and westbound traffic in Richmond, Virginia, originally named for its emblematic complex of structures honoring those who fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Between 1900 and 1925, Monument Avenue greatly expanded with architecturally significant houses, churches, and apartment buildings. Four of the bronze statues representing J. E. B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis and Matthew Fontaine Maury were removed from their memorial pedestals amidst civil unrest in July 2020. The Robert E. Lee monument was handled differently as it was owned by the Commonwealth, in contrast with the other monuments which were owned by the city. Dedicated in 1890, it was removed on September 8, 2021. All these monuments, including their pedestals, have now been removed completely from the Avenue. The last remaining statue on Monument Avenue is the Arthur Ashe Monument, memorializing the African-American tennis champion, dedicated in 1996.
Mitchell Joseph Landrieu is an American lawyer and politician who served as Mayor of New Orleans from 2010 to 2018. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana from 2004 to 2010.
City Park, a 1,300-acre (5.3 km2) public park in New Orleans, Louisiana, is the 87th largest and 20th-most-visited urban public park in the United States. City Park is approximately 50% larger than Central Park in New York City, the municipal park recognized by Americans nationwide as the archetypal urban greenspace. Although it is an urban park whose land is owned by the City of New Orleans, it is administered by the City Park Improvement Association, an arm of state government, not by the New Orleans Parks and Parkways Department. City Park is unusual in that it is a largely self-supporting public park, with most of its annual budget derived from self-generated revenue through user fees and donations. In the wake of the enormous damage inflicted upon the park due to Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism began to partially subsidize the park's operations.
The Robert E. Lee Monument, formerly in New Orleans, Louisiana, is a historic statue dedicated to Confederate General Robert E. Lee by American sculptor Alexander Doyle. It was removed (intact) by official order and moved to an unknown location on May 19, 2017. Any future display is uncertain.
The Battle of Liberty Place, or Battle of Canal Street, was an attempted insurrection by the Crescent City White League against the Reconstruction Era Louisiana Republican state government on September 14, 1874, in New Orleans, which was the capital of Louisiana at the time. Five thousand members of the White League, a paramilitary organization made up largely of Confederate veterans, fought against the outnumbered racially integrated New Orleans Metropolitan Police and state militia. The insurgents held the statehouse, armory, and downtown for three days, retreating before arrival of federal troops that restored the elected government. At least 32 people, including at least 21 members of the White League, were killed in the fighting. No insurgents were charged in the action.
Tivoli Circle is a central traffic circle in New Orleans, Louisiana, which featured a monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee between 1884 and 2017. During this time the circle was known as Lee Circle until its name reverted to Tivoli Circle in 2022. The inner grass circle around the monument was renamed Harmony Circle at that time.
The General Beauregard Equestrian Statue, honoring P. G. T. Beauregard, was located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. The statue, by Alexander Doyle, one of the premier American sculptors, was officially unveiled in 1915.
Confederate monuments and memorials in the United States include public displays and symbols of the Confederate States of America (CSA), Confederate leaders, or Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War. Many monuments and memorials have been or will be removed under great controversy. Part of the commemoration of the American Civil War, these symbols include monuments and statues, flags, holidays and other observances, and the names of schools, roads, parks, bridges, buildings, counties, cities, lakes, dams, military bases, and other public structures. In a December 2018 special report, Smithsonian Magazine stated, "over the past ten years, taxpayers have directed at least $40 million to Confederate monuments—statues, homes, parks, museums, libraries, and cemeteries—and to Confederate heritage organizations."
The Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee Monument, often referred to simply as the Jackson and Lee Monument or Lee and Jackson Monument, was a double equestrian statue of Confederate generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, formerly located on the west side of the Wyman Park Dell in Charles Village in Baltimore, Maryland, alongside a forested hill, similar to the topography of Chancellorsville, Virginia, where Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee met before the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863. The statue was removed on August 16, 2017, on the order of Baltimore City Council, but the base still remains. The monument is in storage and some city council members have called for all Confederate monuments in the state to be destroyed.
The Battle of Liberty Place Monument is a stone obelisk on an inscribed plinth, formerly on display in New Orleans, in the U.S. state of Louisiana, commemorating the "Battle of Liberty Place", an 1874 attempt by Democratic White League paramilitary organizations to take control of the government of Louisiana from its Reconstruction Era Republican leadership after a disputed gubernatorial election.
Jefferson Davis is a statue depicting the American-Confederate politician of the same name by Pompeo Coppini. The sculpture was commissioned in 1919 by George W. Littlefield to be included in the Littlefield Fountain on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. It was installed on the university's South Mall from 1933 to 2015, when it was relocated to the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History in Austin, Texas.
Woodrow Wilson is a sculpture depicting the American president of the same name by Pompeo Coppini. The sculpture was commissioned in 1919 by George W. Littlefield to be included in the Littlefield Fountain on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. It was installed on the university's South Mall in Austin, Texas from 1933 until its removal in 2015.
There are more than 160 monuments and memorials to the Confederate States of America and associated figures that have been removed from public spaces in the United States, all but five of which have been since 2015. Some have been removed by state and local governments; others have been torn down by protestors.
Jefferson Davis, created by Henry Augustus Lukeman, is a bronze sculpture of Jefferson Davis – a U.S. Senator, U.S. Secretary of War, plantation owner and the only President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War – commissioned by the U.S. State of Mississippi for inclusion in National Statuary Hall Collection at the United States Capitol's National Statuary Hall, in Washington, D.C. The statue was controversial at the time of its unveiling and there have been multiple efforts to remove it from the Capitol since the 2010s.
Charles Didier Dreux was the first Confederate field officer killed during the American Civil War. He was the son of Guy Dreux and Léontine Arnoult. Prior to the Civil War, Dreux had served as district attorney and a member of the Louisiana state legislature. 30,000 mourners attended his funeral in New Orleans. He is buried in Metairie Cemetery.
Norman C. Francis Parkway, formerly named Jefferson Davis Parkway or Jeff Davis Parkway, is a street in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. It runs southwest from the head of Bayou St. John in the Mid-City neighborhood to Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard in the Gert Town neighborhood. Like most streets in New Orleans, the segment of the parkway to the north east of Canal Street is named "North" Norman C. Francis Parkway while the segment to the southwest is denoted as "South". The parkway is wide with a grassy median except for where it crosses over the Pontchartrain Expressway.
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Media related to Jefferson Davis monument, Mid-City New Orleans at Wikimedia Commons