Thank you for
coming.
The soul of our
beloved City is deeply rooted in a history that has evolved over thousands of
years; rooted in a diverse people who have been here together every step of the
way – for both good and for ill.
It is a history
that holds in its heart the stories of Native Americans: the Choctaw, Houma
Nation, the Chitimacha. Of Hernando de Soto, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La
Salle, the Acadians, the Islenos, the enslaved people from Senegambia, Free
People of Color, the Haitians, the Germans, both the empires of Francexii and
Spain. The Italians, the Irish, the Cubans, the south and Central Americans,
the Vietnamese and so many more.
You see: New
Orleans is truly a city of many nations, a melting pot, a bubbling cauldron of
many cultures. There is no other place quite like it in the world that so
eloquently exemplifies the uniquely American motto: e pluribus Unum — out of
many we are one.
But there are
also other truths about our city that we must confront. New Orleans was
America’s largest slave market: a port where hundreds of thousands of souls
were brought, sold and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced
labor of misery of rape, of torture.
America was the
place where nearly 4,000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in
Louisiana; where the courts enshrined ‘separate but equal’; where Freedom
riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp. So, when people say
to me that the monuments in question are history, well what I just described is
real history as well, and it is the searing truth.
And it
immediately begs the questions: why there are no slave ship monuments, no
prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks;
nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice,
the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans.
So, for those
self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent
on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission.
There is a
difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it. For America and
New Orleans, it has been a long, winding road, marked by great tragedy and
great triumph. But we cannot be afraid of our truth.
As President
George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of
African American History & Culture, “A great nation does not hide its
history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”
So today I want
to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of
the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing
and understanding of each other. So, let’s start with the facts.
The historic
record is clear: the Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard
statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement
which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This ‘cult’ had one goal —
through monuments and through other means — to rewrite history to hide the
truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity.
First erected
over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the
Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of
our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy. It is self-evident that
these men did not fight for the United States of America. They fought against
it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots.
These statues are
not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign
history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized
Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that
it actually stood for.
After the Civil
War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on
someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all
who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city.
Should you have
further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before
the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens,
made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and
white supremacy?
He said in his
now famous ‘Cornerstone speech’ that the Confederacy’s “cornerstone rests upon
the great truth, that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery —
subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This,
our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this
great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
Now, with these
shocking words still ringing in your ears, I want to try to gently peel from
your hands the grip on a false narrative of our history that I think weakens us
and make straight a wrong turn we made many years ago so we can more closely
connect with integrity to the founding principles of our nation and forge a
clearer and straighter path toward a better city and more perfect union.
Last year,
President Barack Obama echoed these sentiments about the need to contextualize
and remember all of our history. He recalled a piece of stone, a slave auction
block engraved with a marker commemorating a single moment in 1830 when Andrew
Jackson and Henry Clay stood and spoke from it.
President Obama
said, “Consider what this artifact tells us about history … on a stone where
day after day for years, men and women … bound and bought and sold and bid like
cattle on a stone worn down by the tragedy of over a thousand bare feet. For a
long time the only thing we considered important, the singular thing we once
chose to commemorate as history with a plaque were the unmemorable speeches of
two powerful men.”
A piece of stone
– one stone. Both stories were history. One story told. One story forgotten or
maybe even purposefully ignored.
As clear as it is
for me today … for a long time, even though I grew up in one of New Orleans’
most diverse neighborhoods, even with my family’s long proud history of
fighting for civil rights … I must have passed by those monuments a million
times without giving them a second thought.
So, I am not
judging anybody, I am not judging people. We all take our own journey on race.
I just hope people listen like I did when my dear friend Wynton Marsalis helped
me see the truth. He asked me to think about all the people who have left New
Orleans because of our exclusionary attitudes.
Another friend
asked me to consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African
American mother or father trying to explain to their fifth-grade daughter who
Robert E. Lee is and why he stands atop of our beautiful city. Can you do it?
Can you look into
that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to
encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do
these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever
thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too?
We all know the
answer to these very simple questions.
When you look
into this child’s eyes is the moment when the searing truth comes into focus
for us. This is the moment when we know what is right and what we must do. We
can’t walk away from this truth.
And I knew that
taking down the monuments was going to be tough, but you elected me to do the
right thing, not the easy thing and this is what that looks like. So,
relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from
someone else. This is not about politics, this is not about blame or
retaliation. This is not a naĂŻve quest to solve all our problems at once.
This is, however,
about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to
acknowledge, understand, reconcile and, most importantly, choose a better
future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right
what was wrong.
Otherwise, we
will continue to pay a price with discord, with division, and yes, with
violence.
To literally put
the confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an
inaccurate recitation of our full past, it is an affront to our present, and it
is a bad prescription for our future.
History cannot be
changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War
is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely, we are far
enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the
Confederacy was wrong. And in the second decade of the 21st century, asking
African Americans — or anyone else — to drive by property that they own;
occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and
deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd. Centuries-old wounds are
still raw because they never healed right in the first place.
Here is the essential
truth: we are better together than we are apart. Indivisibility is our essence.
Isn’t this the gift that the people of New Orleans have given to the world? We
radiate beauty and grace in our food, in our music, in our architecture, in our
joy of life, in our celebration of death; in everything that we do. We gave the
world this funky thing called jazz; the most uniquely American art form that is
developed across the ages from different cultures.
Think about
second lines, think about Mardi gras, think about muffaletta; think about the
Saints, gumbo, red beans and rice. By God, just think. All we hold dear is
created by throwing everything in the pot; creating, producing something
better; everything a product of our historic diversity.
We are proof that
out of many we are one — and better for it! Out of many we are one — and we
really do love it! And yet, we still seem to find so many excuses for not doing
the right thing. Again, remember President Bush’s words, “A great nation does
not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”
We forget, we
deny how much we really depend on each other, how much we need each other. We
justify our silence and inaction by manufacturing noble causes that marinate in
historical denial. We still find a way to say “wait, not so fast.” But like Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. said, “wait has almost always meant never.”
We can’t wait any
longer. We need to change. And we need to change now. No more waiting. This is
not just about statues, this is about our attitudes and behavior as well. If we
take these statues down and don’t change to become a more open and inclusive
society this would have all been in vain.
While some have
driven by these monuments every day and either revered their beauty or failed
to see them at all, many of our neighbors and fellow Americans see them very
clearly. Many are painfully aware of the long shadows their presence casts, not
only literally but figuratively. And they clearly receive the message that the
Confederacy and the cult of the lost cause intended to deliver.
Earlier this
week, as the cult of the lost cause statue of P.G.T Beauregard came down, world
renowned musician Terence Blanchard stood watch, his wife Robin and their two
beautiful daughters at their side.
Terence went to a
high school on the edge of City Park named after one of America’s greatest
heroes and patriots, John F. Kennedy. But to get there he had to pass by this
monument to a man who fought to deny him his humanity.
He said, “I’ve
never looked at them as a source of pride … it’s always made me feel as if they
were put there by people who don’t respect us. This is something I never
thought I’d see in my lifetime. It’s a sign that the world is changing.”
Yes, Terence, it
is, and it is long overdue. Now is the time to send a new message to the next
generation of New Orleanians who can follow in Terence and Robin’s remarkable
footsteps. A message about the future, about the next 300 years and beyond; let
us not miss this opportunity New Orleans and let us help the rest of the
country do the same. Because now is the time for choosing. Now is the time to
actually make this the City we always should have been, had we gotten it right
in the first place.
We should stop
for a moment and ask ourselves — at this point in our history, after Katrina,
after Rita, after Ike, after Gustav, after the national recession, after the BP
oil catastrophe and after the tornado — if presented with the opportunity to
build monuments that told our story or to curate these particular spaces …
would these monuments be what we want the world to see? Is this really our
story?
We have not
erased history; we are becoming part of the city’s history by righting the
wrong image these monuments represent and crafting a better, more complete
future for all our children and for future generations. And unlike when these
Confederate monuments were first erected as symbols of white supremacy, we now
have a chance to create not only new symbols, but to do it together, as one
people.
In our blessed
land, we all come to the table of democracy as equals. We have to reaffirm our
commitment to a future where each citizen is guaranteed the uniquely American
gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is what really makes
America great and today it is more important than ever to hold fast to these
values and together say a self-evident truth that out of many we are one. That
is why today we reclaim these spaces for the United States of America. Because
we are one nation, not two; indivisible with liberty and justice for all, not
some.
We all are part
of one nation, all pledging allegiance to one flag, the flag of the United
States of America. And New Orleanians are in, all of the way. It is in this
union and in this truth that real patriotism is rooted and flourishes.
Instead of
revering a 4-year brief historical aberration that was called the Confederacy
we can celebrate all 300 years of our rich, diverse history as a place named
New Orleans and set the tone for the next 300 years.
After decades of
public debate, of anger, of anxiety, of anticipation, of humiliation and of
frustration. After public hearings and approvals from three separate community
led commissions. After two robust public hearings and a 6-1 vote by the duly
elected New Orleans City Council. After review by 13 different federal and
state judges. The full weight of the legislative, executive, and judicial
branches of government has been brought to bear and the monuments in accordance
with the law have been removed.
So now is the
time to come together and heal and focus on our larger task. Not only building
new symbols, but making this city a beautiful manifestation of what is possible
and what we as a people can become.
Let us remember
what the once exiled, imprisoned and now universally loved Nelson Mandela and
what he said after the fall of apartheid. “If the pain has often been
unbearable and the revelations shocking to all of us, it is because they indeed
bring us the beginnings of a common understanding of what happened and a steady
restoration of the nation’s humanity.”
So, before we
part let us again state the truth clearly. The Confederacy was on the wrong
side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate
our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and
one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered.
As a community,
we must recognize the significance of removing New Orleans’ Confederate
monuments. It is our acknowledgment that now is the time to take stock of, and
then move past, a painful part of our history. Anything less would render
generations of courageous struggle and soul-searching a truly lost cause.
Anything less would fall short of the immortal words of our greatest President
Abraham Lincoln, who with an open heart and clarity of purpose calls on us
today to unite as one people when he said:
“With malice
toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us
to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the
nation’s wounds, to do all which may achieve and cherish: a just and lasting
peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Thank you.
I'm in New Orleans a number of times during the year, & I really like Mitch Landrieu. Unfortunately,the end
ReplyDeleteof his term is coming up, & he cannot (unlike Emperor Bloomberg) run again).
Perhaps he could come to Chicago?
(After all, we sent N.O. Paul Vallas.)
The latter being MOST unfortunate for them.