It is generally accepted fact that this impetus for erecting this monument was to honor of the Crescent City White League, the New Orleans "chapter" of a domestic terrorist organization that was founded with the intention of using violence to intimidate and disenfranchise US citizens who happened to be black. To add insult to injury, the actual "battle" it celebrates was a paramilitary assault on and temporary takeover of a number of government buildings, during which over a hundred people were murdered, including 11 police officers.
Although the battle occurred in 1874, the monument was erected in 1891, as an indelible symbol of white supremacy's foothold in the state. Soon after it was erected at the foot of the Canal Street, the monument's role as a symbol of hatred and bigotry was solidified when it became the gathering spot for another Crescent City White League-sponsored terrorism event—the lynchings and murders of over a dozen men of Italian descent who had been accused (and acquitted) of the murder of the city's police chief.
No amount of revisionist whitewashing can change the fact that the Liberty place cop-killings and the 1891 mass-murders supposedly committed to avenge a cop-killing, were the actions of thugs and terrorists—not heroes. As the global community unites in eradicating the hate-driven terrorism of ISIS, we are cannot afford to allow such an overt symbol of and monument to bigotry and hatred continue to occupy a place in our local community.
Just as we have demanded that our national leaders decisively act to prevent future terrorism events, we must demand that our local leaders decisively act to eliminate monuments that celebrate past events.
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