LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) — Lafayette’s statue of Confederate Gen. Alfred Mouton will be moved after a local confederacy group backed down from a protracted legal battle Friday.

Lafayette’s United Daughters of the Confederacy Chapter, which donated the statue to the city in April 1922, agreed to a settlement with Lafayette Consolidated Government and a group of citizens seeking to move the statue Friday morning, according to Move the Mindset President Fred Prejean, who called Friday’s developments “surreal.”

“I’m very happy of the attitude the city has displayed in terms of cooperating and realizing that that statue does not represent who we are,” Prejean said. “And I’m proud of the city, as conservative as Lafayette is, I’m proud that they took the attitude that this statue doesn’t belong here.”

UDC President Jessica McChesney rejected an earlier settlement offer weeks ago from LCG that would have ultimately paid $25,000 to move the statue anywhere else the Daughters wanted.

But after a Monday court ruling giving her until noon Friday to provide a list of UDC members to the court, McChesney agreed to the original settlement that gives the UDC just 45 days to find a new home for the contentious statue before the city takes the matter into its own hands and moves the statue itself.

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