NEW ORLEANS– On Monday, the activists who coordinate Take ‘Em Down Nola called for a party to be thrown when the confederate monuments come down.
According to Malcolm Suber, one of the coordinators for Take ‘Em Down Nola, Mayor Landrieu and his committee plan to take the statues down during the midnight hours, but Suber would not name his source.
“We see the campaign to remove the monuments as a public campaign, that we waged, and we see this as a victory for the people so we want to celebrate that victory,” said Suber on the steps of City Hall Monday morning. “We want to take them down in the middle of the day so that everyone can be there, and that we can show the people of the city that there are some people who appreciate this.”
There has been fear of violence surrounding the removal of the statues, but the city has made no comment.
“We see this as a cowardly thing that the mayor would try to do this in the midnight hours,” said Suber referring to what his source told him about the mayors desires to remove the statues at 1 a.m.
The four statues at issue depict Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard and a local Reconstruction-era militia group called the White League.
It’s been difficult to find a contractor to remove the statues, some have reported receiving death threats for taking the job in to consideration.