In 2017, the city of New Orleans orchestrated the removal of four Confederate monuments within the city limits, which either depicted prominent Confederate leaders (like Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and P. T. Beauregard) or commemorated events of controversy which took place in the midst of southern reconstruction (such as the Battle of Liberty Place in 1874). These monuments were erected several decades after the figures and events which they were dedicated to died or faded away and were responsible for helping reinvigorate the spirt of what is commonly referred to today as "Lost Cause Mythology"; which in the modern day has been increasingly challenged by academia and the current social/political tide of the general American population. 

Now that these four monuments have been removed, all that stands remaining are the monument bases. I would like to see the erecting of a new monument on one of these bases, which bears the potential of not only showcasing new cultural perspectives and evolving narratives of New Orleans history. Specifically a statue of Major Joseph Savary. A man who until the time of the American Civil War was the highest ranking African American soldier in U.S. military history. He fled from the Haitian Revolution to Louisiana, and served as a commanding officer in a regiment of free, black militiamen, alongside Major General Andrew Jackson, in the Battle of New Orleans (during the War of 1812).

Major Savary's name and contribution to the preservation of the United States in one of it's most trying times, has now been almost lost to the historical record and in a time and place such as ours in America, a monument dedicated to him in the city where he called home would help remind not only New Orleanians, but also African American communities across the country, that their history is more than just one of bondage and oppression. It's a history of liberty & enfranchisement; just as much as it was for the likes of any of those powdered, wig-wearing "Founders".