A court is expected to hear arguments on whether New Orleans should be able to remove four Confederate monuments.
 
The case will be heard Wednesday by a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

The City Council voted in December 2015 to remove the monuments to Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and a statue honoring whites who tried to topple a biracial post-Civil War government in New Orleans.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu urged the monuments be removed after police said a white supremacist who posed with the Confederate battle flag for photos killed nine parishioners inside an African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina, last year.

But the decision to remove the monuments has been sharply controversial and led to an immediate court fight.