Confederate Monuments and Racism

When New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu succeeded in removing three Confederate monuments, he said those three statues to Lee, Beauregard and Davis represented “terrorism.” “. . . [T]hey were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city,” he added.[1] Mayor Ron Nirenberg of San Antonio made similar comments when the San Antonio Confederate monument was removed. On Aug. 31, 2017, he said the Confederate statue represented the darkest chapter in San Antonio history.[2] Both mayors described their respective Confederate monuments as extensions of the Confederate States of America.

As a lawyer who has practiced employment law for some 25 years (with a couple of interruptions for military service), I cringe. Two elected leaders, both very bright and hard working, are conflating two different events, the Civil War and the monuments memorializing Confederate dead. Worse, they confuse motives for the war with motives for the monuments. Mayor Landrieu may have greater latitude, because at least, the New Orleans monuments commemorated actual CSA leaders. But, the state in San Antonio represented no leader. It represented the common Confederate soldier