CHICAGO (AFP).- New Orleans will remove four Confederate statues from city streets after months of heated debate about how to commemorate US history without glorifying slavery, local media reported Thursday.

Confederate symbols and monuments have long been controversial in the United States, where they are beloved by some residents of the once slave-owning southern states which seceded during the 1861-1865 Civil War, but reviled by those who see them as racist.

An attack by a white supremacist on a historic black church in Charleston, North Carolina that left nine people dead in June renewed debate over the symbols after images emerged of the shooter holding the Confederate flag.

South Carolina removed the Confederate flag from its state house and several major retailers stopped selling items carrying the "stars and bars" red, white and blue Civil War-era battle flag.

"The Confederacy, you see, was on the wrong side of history and humanity," New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu reportedly said in urging city council to either mothball the statues or put them in a museum.

Councilman James Gray, who is black, called the statues homages to "murderers and rapists."

"I am happy and impressed that we have a white mayor who understands a little bit what it means to be an African American and he's on our side on this," he said, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Coastal New Orleans was a major hub for the slave trade, and racial tensions remain high there generations after the Civil War put an end to slavery.

The four statues were erected during the Jim Crow era, when segregation dominated the south. They honor two major Confederate generals, the Confederate president and an 1874 insurrection by former Confederate soldiers.



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