It cannot be moved like a statue. This is not about politics, this is not about blame or retaliation. Last year, President Barack Obama echoed these sentiments about the need to contextualize and remember all of our history. We all are part of one nation, all pledging allegiance to one flag, the flag of the United States of America. “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.”. Isn't this the gift that the people of New Orleans have given to the world? They were symbols of white supremacy, and of the systemic oppression of human beings. 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 a more perfect union. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost, and we are better for it. Hours after a crane lifted a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from its pedestal in New Orleans’ Lee Circle on Friday ― where it had loomed over the black-majority city for 133 years ― Mayor Mitch Landrieu (D) delivered a speech on race that many are already hailing as historic. 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. It is in this union and in this truth that real patriotism is rooted and flourishes. 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. So I am not judging anybody, I am not judging people. 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. And they clearly receive the message that the Confederacy and the cult of the lost cause intended to deliver. Because we are one nation, not two; indivisible with liberty and justice for all, not some. It faces its flaws and corrects them.". You have reached your limit of 4 free articles. After two robust public hearings and a 6-1 vote by the duly elected New Orleans City Council. 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. Just hours before workers removed a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee — the fourth Confederate monument to be dismantled in New Orleans in recent weeks — Mayor Mitch Landrieu gave a special address at historic Gallier Hall.. Here’s a full transcript of Landrieu’s remarks: Thank you for coming. On May 23, 2017, New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu gave an address on the removal of Confederate statues and monuments. Otherwise, we will continue to pay a price with discord, with division and, yes, with violence. So now is the time to come together and heal and focus on our larger task. One story forgotten or maybe even purposefully ignored. 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? It faces its flaws and corrects them.”. Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place. Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too? They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots. This is something I never thought I'd see in my lifetime. 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. An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. 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. 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. We all know the answer to these very simple questions. They fought against it. Not only building new symbols, but making this city a beautiful manifestation of what is possible and what we as a people can become. I don't think he really addresses his belief in why Confederate statues need to come down until the last third of the book, but he is very convincing...he won me over to his point of view. He asked me to think about all the people who have left New Orleans because of our exclusionary attitudes. But to get there he had to pass by this monument to a man who fought to deny him his humanity. After two robust public hearings and a 6-1 vote by the duly elected New Orleans City Council. Here is that pride at work in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, during a march for Civil Rights led by Martin Luther King, Jr.: You can fly the flag, but not atop a statehouse. 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. Here is the essential truth: We are better together than we are apart. This content is imported from YouTube. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Not only building new symbols, but making this city a beautiful manifestation of what is possible and what we as a people can become. So before we part let us again state the truth clearly. Katherine Sayre wrote an article, ”Read Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s speech on removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments” in The Times-Picayune, that included the mayor’s full speech. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our. This is not a naïve quest to solve all our problems at once. We all are part of one nation, all pledging allegiance to one flag, the flag of the United States of America. 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. What an Honest Account of History Looks Like, New Orleans Will Finally Tear Down Its Monuments to American Traitors, Stonewall Jackson's Descendants: Take Statue Down, John Oliver Dismantled Confederate Monuments, A Few Well-Soaked Words About the Old New Orleans. Is this really our story? This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.". New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu gave a historic speech at Gallier Hall on Friday, May 19, 2017 as the final of four Confederate monuments was taken down at … And, five days ago, he gave a remarkably compelling speech about race in … 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. So I am not judging anybody, I am not judging people. Can you do it? As a community, we must recognize the significance of removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments. 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. Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know now on politics, health and more, © 2021 TIME USA, LLC. 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. Yes, Terence, it is, and it is long overdue. 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.”. … Yes, Terence, it is, and it is long overdue. Why Conspiracy Theorists Are Burning Snowballs, Clarence Thomas's Dissent Is a Conservative Con. After public hearings and approvals from three separate community led commissions. It is in this union and in this truth that real patriotism is rooted and flourishes. He said in his now famous “corner-stone 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. The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu talked about his book, [In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History], on his decision to remove four Confederate statues … We still find a way to say "wait, not so fast. Anything less would render generations of courageous struggle and soul-searching a truly lost cause.

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