Mitch Landrieu to write book about Confederate statue removal

The publisher announced the book, titled "In the Shadow of Statues," in a Tweet after the Washington Post ran a story on Landrieu's deal.

The Washington Post article gave a longer name for the upcoming book, adding "A White Southerner Confronts History" to the title.

Landrieu urged the New Orleans City Council to declare four statues depicting confederate generals or battles associated with the Civil War and the Reconstruction era public nuisances in the wake of a racially motivated mass shooting in a historic South Carolina church.

In a public address as a statue of Robert E. Lee was removed from its perch over Lee Circle in Downtown New Orleans, Landrieu said the statue removal process was necessary for the city to move forward.

In the speech, Landrieu called slavery a "searing truth, and it immediately begs the question why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks, nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives – of pain, of sacrifice, of shame – all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans."