BALTIMORE — Baltimore's mayor says she wants to explore removing the city's Confederate monuments, "following in the footsteps of New Orleans."
Mayor Catherine Pugh tells The Baltimore Sun that the "city does want to remove" the monuments, and could save money by auctioning them off.
New Orleans recently removed three prominent Confederate statues and a monument heralding white supremacy. A commission appointed by the previous mayor recommended removing a monument to Marylander Roger B. Taney, the Supreme Court justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision denying citizenship to African-Americans, as well as a statue of two Virginians — the Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson.
Instead, former Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake put up signs calling them propaganda designed to falsify history and support racial intimidation.