"Local NAACP President Lloyd Thompson says it’s time for the monument to go. He says it’s a symbol of hate and stirs emotions of divisiveness. He’s asking parish leaders to come up with the funding to tear the structure down.
But the monument and the land it sits on are owned by the Daughters of the Confederacy and that group has issued this statement:
"The monument belongs to the Shreveport Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. It is on the National Registry of Historical Sites and it will not be moved."
Parish Commissioners say it will cost $300,000 to take down the monument. Thompson is also asking that it be removed from the National Registry of Historic Sites."
This particular monument has special significance in Civil War History, and Southern Heritage. On the grounds of the Caddo Parish court house stands the monument erected in 1902 at the last Confederate Capital, near the spot the last Confederate flag was lowered over land after the end of the war.
It has been a target of groups like the ACLU before, despite it's significance to American history, as well as a representation of a specific period of American Art history.
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| The Caddo Parish Confederate Monument is of statewide significance under Criterion A as one of four major Louisiana monuments representing what is known by historians as "the Cult of the Lost Cause." More specifically, these monuments are Louisiana's most important representations of the Memorial Period, or second phase (1883 to 1907), of the Civil War Commemorative Sculpture Movement. These monuments represent a significant physical reminder of the period: reflecting the introduction and presence of Civil War monument construction in Louisiana and the role women played in the memorial period. This is an example of Art as History. The Cult of the Lost Cause continued to dominate Southern cultural history in the early twentieth century, and is still alive and well today. - National Park Service - Registry of Historic Places |
Regardless of what you views are of this chapter of American history, it is woven into our fabric. You can argue is was an unjust rebellion or justifiable uprising. But what remains as a reminder of it all is not to be destroyed because some opportunist fain offense at the images of America and it's past. If we start down roads such as this, some may not like where it leads.....