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 Colorix, the Haitians, the
Germans, both the empires of France 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 caldron 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 bought, sold and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of
forced labor of misery of rape, of torture. America was the place where
nearly 4000 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 — 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 a more perfect union.
Last
year, President Barack Obama echoed these sentiments about the need to
contextualize and remember all 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 naïve 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.
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.