Confederate ‘monuments were a lie,’ Mitch Landrieu says on ’60 Minutes’

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday evening (March 11), during which he described the four Confederate monuments he removed as “a lie,” and discussed how they had been erected as an attempt to redefine history.

Landrieu went on to explain how the statues, as well as others still in place, misrepresented history and continued to oppress people of color over 150 years after the Confederacy lost the Civil War.

“In a city that I represent, that’s 67 percent African-American, to have a young African-American girl pass by that statue and look at it every day, I ask myself, ‘Am I really preparing for her — a really good future? Is she feeling like she’s gettin’ lifted up by the government or is she being put down?’ I mean, I think the answer’s pretty clear,” Landrieu said during his interview with Anderson Cooper.

He also described the battle that went into taking the monuments down, including the threats against contractors hired to remove the statues that ultimately forced his staff to get equipment from out of state.

Landrieu brought Cooper to the storage facility currently housing Robert E. Lee, P.G.T Beauregard, Jefferson Davis and the Battle of Liberty Place monuments, where Landrieu called them “daunting.”

Cooper summed up Landrieu’s argument when he stated, “You look at these monuments. You wouldn’t know the Confederacy lost.”

To which Landrieu replied, “The whole point was to convince people that actually they won, and even in their defeat, (the Confederacy) was a noble cause.”