Supremacist Pillar Stirs Racial Tension

An attempt to quietly remove a nearly century-old stone monument honoring white supremacists has sparked racial tensions and threatens federal funds for a construction project, officials said.

City officials said the 20-foot obelisk must be removed because of road construction and because of commercial development of the area near the monument.

“They’re lying in their teeth,” said Wayne Ponthieux of Boh Brothers Construction Co. Inc., foreman of the crew doing the street work. “I can work all around that monument. That monument does not have to be touched.”

None of the street work comes closer than 15 feet, he said.

Streets Director Betty Jo Everett, who said that the move was forced by road work, said later last week that electrical and traffic engineers told her the obelisk might be damaged by the work.

The monument also could block the view of traffic signals that will be installed after the road work is done, she said.

“It would be a safety hazard in the way that we have redesigned the intersection,” said Everett. “When uses change over the years, you have to make decisions for the safety of the public, both pedestrians and drivers.”

Erected in 1891, the monument bears the names of 16 people, all members of the White League, who died in a brief, bloody battle in 1874 between the white supremacist group and the Reconstruction government.

An inscription added in 1932 says: “United States troops took over the state government and reinstated the usurpers but the national election in November 1876 recognized white supremacy and gave us our state.”

It’s the second time in eight years that an official in this predominantly black city has tried to remove the pointed pillar officially called the Liberty Place Monument.

Everett said she gave the order to remove the monument without consulting Mayor Sidney Barthelemy, who is running for reelection in February, 1990. Barthelemy has not publicly commented on the situation.

While the road work continues, the order to remove the obelisk was put on hold until officials decide where it should go and whether moving it would violate federal law.

Glenn Montecino, an aide to state representative and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, said moving the obelisk could mean the construction project will lose federal funds since it could be a candidate for the National Register of Historic Places.

Although the monument isn’t yet on the National Register, federal rules require preservation officials be consulted before work starts at a site that might qualify for the register, said Leslie P. Tassin, Louisiana’s historic preservation officer.

In the 1970s, blacks demanded removal of the monument, which had long been and continues to be a rallying point for white supremacists. Their demands were rejected, but a plaque repudiating the references to white supremacy was added in 1974.

Former Mayor Dutch Morial, the city’s first black mayor, advertised in 1981 for a firm to remove the monument from the center of a tiny traffic circle. The City Council said the obelisk had to stay, but agreed to let the 1932 inscriptions be removed.

They were filled in, whitewashed over, and covered up. But the covers since have been removed, leaving bolts sticking out from partly erased inscriptions. The 1974 plaque also is nowhere to be seen.

Morial’s move, like Everett’s order, sparked challenges from the National Assn. for the Advancement of White People, founded by Duke.

Duke, former imperial wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, founded the NAAWP after repudiating the klan. He was elected last February to the state Legislature.

The NAAWP held a small protest at the monument earlier this month in which about 20 people showed up. The group said it would be satisfied if the city assured it the monument would be erected somewhere within the 10 blocks covered by the Battle of Liberty.