New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu will receive the 2018 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for his role in removing four Confederate monuments.
“Mayor Landrieu turned a difficult and divisive issue into an opportunity to reflect on our nation’s history and to recommit ourselves to our founding principles of equality and justice,” Jack Schlossberg, Kennedy’s grandson, said in a statement.
{mosads}“The Mayor explained what the monuments represent — a dark chapter in our history that should neither be forgotten, misunderstood nor glorified.”
Schlossberg said that Landrieu’s courage stood out brightly during a year marked by “continued racial injustice” and a “moment of misguided national leadership.”
“President Kennedy believed that at its best, politics was a noble profession — Mayor Landrieu is living proof of that bold proposition,” he said.
Landrieu advocated for and garnered city council support for the removal of Confederate statues, including those of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.
The move to remove the statues was met with opposition from critics who tried to prevent their removal.
In May 2017, Landrieu gave a speech after the fourth statue was taken down saying the issue is “not about politics.”
“This is not about blame or retaliation. This is not a naive quest to solve all our problems at once,” he said.
“This is, however, about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile and most important, choose a better future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right what was wrong.”
The Profile in Courage Award was created in 1989 and is given to public servants who “have made courageous decisions of conscience without regard for the personal or professional consequences.”
There has been much controversy over the removal of Confederate monuments in cities across the country.