After taking down Confederate monuments, New Orleans Mayor Landrieu hopes people rethink their histo

Mitch Landrieu:

I certainly did. But I want to put this in context for the country.

As New Orleans suffered from the effects of Katrina, and then Rita, and then Ike, and then Gustav, and then the BP oil spill and the recession, we were in the midst of rebuilding the cities. And as we built the hospitals and the riverfront, we were thinking about, well, how are we going to get ready for our 300th anniversary, which allowed us to really think about where we had been and what we were doing.

And the public spaces came into full view. So, when I asked Wynton, who, as you know, is not only a great musician, but a great historian, to help me curate the 300th anniversary, he said, you really ought to think about taking those statues down, because they don't reflect who we are. And have you ever thought about them from the perspective or from the perspective of the African-American community?

And, of course, that set off an explosion in my head. And I started thinking about why they were there. And that really kind of began the process of suggesting to the city that we take them down.

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