"It’s essential if we really want to move forward that we do so together. We cannot do that unless we deal forthrightly with the issue of race."
Sonny Figueroa (The New York Times)
New Orleans is a great American city, but it’s not often that its mayor becomes well-known on a national scale. That happened in May 2017, when Mayor Mitch Landrieu delivered a speech about the removal of the last four Confederate monuments in the city. “These monuments celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy,” Mr. Landrieu said, “ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, ignoring the terror that it actually stood for.” The speech was widely shared while arguments about how best to remember and commemorate history continued across the country.
In his new book, “In the Shadow of Statues,” Mr. Landrieu surveys Southern history and its lingering divides in deeper detail, and also shares details about his childhood, when he was harassed and threatened because of the progressive racial politics of his father, Moon Landrieu, who was then mayor of New Orleans. Below, Mr. Landrieu discusses the differences between writing a book and writing a speech, how musical theater helped shape his view of the world and more.
