New Orleans officials are expecting supporters to file lawsuits to stop the city from removing the Robert E. Lee Monument and three other monuments in New Orleans. The City Council voted to remove the monuments because of their ties to the city’s Confederate past.
New Orleans officials are expecting supporters to file lawsuits to stop the city from removing the Robert E. Lee Monument and three other monuments in New Orleans. The City Council voted to remove the monuments because of their ties to the city’s Confederate past.Gerald Herbert/Associated Press file photo

The council’s 6-1 vote on Thursday afternoon allows the city to remove four monuments, including a towering statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that has stood at the center of a traffic circle for 131 years.

The decision to take down the monuments came after months of impassioned debate. Now, the city faces possible lawsuits seeking to keep the monuments where they are.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu first proposed taking down the monuments after police said a white supremacist killed nine parishioners inside the African-American Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June.

Anti-Confederate sentiment has grown since then around the country, along with protests against police mistreatment, as embodied by the Black Lives Matter movement.