Robert E. Lee Monument (New Orleans, Louisiana)
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Robert E. Lee Monument
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The monument in 2015
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| Location | Lee Cir. (900–1000 blocks St. Charles Ave.), New Orleans, Louisiana |
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| Coordinates | 29°56′35″N 90°4′20″W / 29.94306°N 90.07222°WCoordinates: 29°56′35″N 90°4′20″W / 29.94306°N 90.07222°W |
| Built | 1884 |
| Built by | Roy, John |
| Sculptor | Alexander Doyle |
| NRHP Reference # | 91000254 |
| Added to NRHP | March 19, 1991 |
The Robert E. Lee Monument in New Orleans, Louisiana is a historic monument dedicated to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. The monument was included by New Orleans magazine in June 2011 as one of the city's "11 important statues".
The monument was dedicated in 1884, at Tivoli Circle (Lee Circle) on St. Charles Avenue. Dignitaries present at the dedication on February 22—George Washington's birthday—included former Confederate President Jefferson Davis, two daughters of General Lee, and Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard. Efforts to build the statue began after Lee's death in 1870 by the Robert E. Lee Monument Association, which by 1876 had raised the $36,400 needed. The association's president was Charles E. Fenner. New York sculptor Alexander Doyle was hired to sculpt the statue, which was installed in 1884. Base and pedestal designed and built by John Ray [Roy], architect; contract dated 1877. Cost $26,474.39. John Hagan, a builder, was contracted to "furnish and set" the column. Cost $9,350.
The Lee statue "faces north where, as local lore has it, he can always look in the direction of his military adversaries."
A racial confrontation occurred at the monument on January 19, 1972, the birthday of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Addison Roswell Thompson, a perennial segregationist candidate for governor of Louisiana and mayor of New Orleans, and his friend and mentor, Rene LaCoste (not to be confused with the French tennis player René Lacoste), clashed with a group of Black Panthers. Then eighty-nine years of age and a former opera performer in New York City, LaCoste was described as "dapper in seersucker slacks and navy sports jacket" and with a "white mustache and goatee" resembling Colonel Harland Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken. LaCoste and Thompson dressed in Klan robes for the occasion and placed a Confederate flag at the monument. The Black Panthers began throwing bricks at the pair, but police arrived in time to prevent serious injury. At the time of the Thompson/LaCoste confrontation, David Duke, then an active Klansman who served from 1989 to 1992 in the Louisiana House of Representatives, had been among those jailed in New Orleans for "inciting to riot".
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Wikipedia