Remove the "Bloody Caddo" lynching tree!!!

The Southern Live Oak tree at the center of the courthouse square on Milam Street in Caddo Parish/Shreveport, Louisiana has a history that is full of atrocities that dominated not just the city, or the state, but the country as a whole. The tree, donated by Judge Thomas Fletcher Bell in the late 1800s, was a central location used by angry mobs (due to its relatively low branches to loop ropes over) to punish African Americans and any sympathizers that violated racial etiquette. At 389 lynchings, Caddo Parish was second only to Phillips County, Arkansas, in total number of lynchings by county/parish in the United States.

These lynchings were a form of domestic terrorism that peaked between 1880 and 1950, claiming the lives of African-American men, women, and children who were forced to endure the fear, humiliation, and barbarity of this widespread phenomenon unaided.

SOLUTIONS:
We believe that this tree is a tool of domestic terrorism where the mob rule mentality replaced the justice system that should have protected the individuals that were beaten, dragged, lynched, and sometimes shot & burned AFTER being hung.

This tree must come down!!! We propose that it be safely cut down.

In return, we recommend that one Cypress tree be planted in mourning & remembrance of the lives unjustly taken by the "Bloody Caddo" lynching tree.