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P.G.T. Beauregard Statue Removed From Entrance To New Orleans City Park

The P.G.T Beauregard monument hours before it was removed in the early hours of May 17th, 2017.
Laine Kaplan-Levenson
/
WWNO
The P.G.T Beauregard monument hours before it was removed in the early hours of May 17th, 2017.

A third confederate monument in New Orleans was removed in the middle of the night. The statue of P.G.T. Beauregard that once stood at the entrance to New Orleans’ City Park is now gone.

It took almost 7 hours for workers to strap the statue of confederate general PGT Beauregard and his horse to a crane and lift it onto a flatbed truck. Karen Murray was there in protest. She wiped away angry tears as she watched workers set up in the dark.

“It’s like thieves in the night, oh let’s take it down in the middle of the night, you know who takes things down in the middle of the night?”

All three confederate monuments were removed at night, for security purposes, says Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Many came to cheer the monument coming down, and the two sides argued across barricades. Three people were detained. There's now one confederate monument that’s still slated for removal: the statue of Robert E. Lee. 

Copyright 2017 WWNO - New Orleans Public Radio

Laine Kaplan-Levenson
Laine Kaplan-Levenson is a producer and reporter for NPR's Throughline podcast. Before joining the Throughline team, they were the host and producer of WWNO's award-winning history podcast TriPod: New Orleans at 300, as well as WWNO/WRKF's award-winning political podcast Sticky Wicket. Before podcasting, they were a founding reporter for WWNO's Coastal Desk, and covered land loss, fisheries, water management, and all things Louisiana coast. Kaplan-Levenson has contributed to NPR, This American Life, Marketplace, Latino USA, Oxford American (print), Here and Now, The World, 70 Million, and Nancy, among other national outlets. They served as a host and producer of Last Call, a multiracial collective of queer artists and archivists, and freelanced as a storytelling and podcast consultant, workshop instructor, and facilitator of student-produced audio projects. Kaplan-Levenson is also the founder and host of the live storytelling series, Bring Your Own. They like to play music and occasionally DJ under the moniker DJ Swimteam.