Move the Mindset—an interracial activists group devoted to promoting racial and social justice in Lafayette, Louisiana—has been trying for five years to get in front of a judge to ask for the removal of a Confederate general’s statue in front of the courthouse.

There was opposition from Confederate support groups. And there was COVID-19, the coronavirus disease pandemic that shut down the courts in March. But reopening began this fall, and finally a hearing was scheduled for Monday before 15th Judicial Circuit Judge David Smith in Lafayette—about 135 miles west and slightly north of New Orleans.