CALLING ALL MONUMENT SUPPORTERS

The South's Defenders Memorial Monument
LONG MAY IT STAND!
(Photo by M.D. Jones)

There will be a special meeting of the Lake Charles City Council at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 28, in City Council chambers on the first floor of City Hall in the Pioneer Building in Lake Charles, La. to consider a resolution to the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury to remove The South's Defender's Memorial Monument in Lake Charles. The city council has no authority to remove the monument and it has no business telling Calcasieu Parish Police Jurors what to do. Hopefully the majority of the city council will see this is a divisive and wrong-headed resolution and will reject it. All monument supporters are encouraged to attend the meeting to let their opinions be heard.
     The South's Defenders Memorial Monument was put up in a spirit of reconciliation, peace and unity as all the speeches, records, and documents show. The monument has always stood for honoring fallen soldiers and veterans and nothing else. It has never stood for slavery, racism, white supremacy, etc. -- that is all misinterpretation and misinformation. In addition, many local families are descendants of the soldiers who shed their blood and some lost their lives defending Calcasieu Parish and their ancestors deserve recognition as much as veterans of other wars. In addition, many Southern soldiers, black and white, have defended this parish, state and nation and it would be a terrible precedent to tear down any war memorial honoring veterans. This honorable war memorial has been part of the Lake Charles landscape for 105-years. It is in exactly the right place.
     In addition, the local Confederate company raised here in Lake Charles by Captain James W. Bryan --  who became the first mayor of Lake Charles -- was nicknamed the Calcasieu Tigers and was Company I of the 28th (29th) Louisiana Infantry Regiment. Captain Bryan personally enlisted a free black man into the company, Pvt. Jean Baptiste Pierre Auguste, who  served honorably throughout the war, was wounded in action at the Siege of Vicksburg, and after the war received a Confederate pension from the state of Louisiana. That fact is well documented and The South's Defender Memorial Monument represents veterans of all races.
      The monument is in the right place, stands for the right things, and should be left right where it is. Long may it stand!
      If you'd like to express your support for the monument, please call the Mayor's Action Line at 337 491-1346. LONG MAY THE SOUTH'S DEFENDERS MEMORIAL MONUMENT STAND!