A Confederate monument comes down in New Orleans – but not without a fight

The Jefferson Davis Monument stood in New Orleans from 1911 – when it was dedicated in a ‘Whites Only’ ceremony – until 11 May 2017. The decision to remove the statue was handed down by the New Orleans City Council in the wake of the church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, which was carried out in 2015 by a white supremacist and left nine African Americans dead. Goodbye, Old Glory is a dizzying, challenging and at times disturbing document of the protests leading up to the monument’s removal. Carefully balancing a vérité film style with moments of keen commentary, and peppered with the sounds of New Orleans, the video is at once local and universal, capturing the fractured political landscape in the US and the heft of the tides of history.