Please welcome Mayor Mitch Landrieu.
-♪ ♪ -(cheering and applause)
-How are ya? -Welcome to the show.
Thank you very much for having me.
Uh, the title of the book is intriguing.
The contents are even more amazing.
Uh, In the Shadow of Statues:
A White Southerner Confronts History--
that is exactly what you are, a white Southerner.
That comes with a certain connotation.
It comes with a certain stereotype attached to it.
But do you think there is something about it,
being a white Southerner, that-that gives you
a different way of thinking in America?
Well, I think so. It gives you a different perspective.
First of all, I love the South. It's a great place.
I love the city of New Orleans and the people.
But when you're just dealing with the issue of race,
which is one that we had not dealt with forthrightly
in the country, uh, sometimes you need to speak truth
and you try to speak it in a way
that invites people to a different place.
-Right. -And we've had a hard time doing that in this country.
And, of course, it's beginning to raise its head again.
And every time it does that, I think we have an obligation,
especially from the South, to-to confront the issue
and to deal with it so that we can heal a divided nation.
When you look at the story of the Confederate statues--
you were in the epicenter of this.
Four statues in Louisiana that you were trying to take down,
and you would think, I mean, that it would be
a simple exercise, but it turned into one
-where you were receiving death threats. -Yep.
Construction companies refused to bring it down.
You couldn't get a crane to do the work.
You had to bring in people from out of state.
Were you shocked at the backlash?
Uh, I was surprised at how visceral the backlash was,
and how people, really, outside of New Orleans,
notwithstanding the fact that they were not from there,
felt that they had some ownership over property
that the people of New Orleans owned,
in city that was now 60% African American.
-Right. -And I was surprised that it was so hard.
I thought that after the-the murders
in, uh, Mother Emanuel in Charlotte,
when they took down the Confederate statue,
that the nation would finally come to grips
with this particular issue and realize
that these particular statues were not true,
that they were part of a historic lie.
And by the way, it was in the midst of us rebuilding
the city of New Orleans after the destruction of Katrina,
so we were trying to build the city back not the way it was,
but the way it kind of should have been
if we would have gotten it right the first time.
So yeah, I was surprised and disappointed by how hard it was.
What's interesting in the book is you talk about your journey
as well in discovering the pain and the message
that comes with the Confederate statues.
And I really found that intriguing,
because you acknowledge that you had a blind spot,
you acknowledge that you didn't see the statues at all, in fact,
-Correct. -and it was a friend of yours, a jazz musician,
who had to bring it to your attention and had to say to you,
"Imagine how it feels for a black person."
Well, it wasn't just any jazz musician.
He was actually the greatest one in the world,
-Wynton Marsalis, -Right.
who was a dear friend of mine when we were growing up.
And I had asked Wynton, as the mayor of the city,
to help me curate the 300th anniversary
of the great city of New Orleans--
which we're about to celebrate, by the way--
and Wynton said to me, "I'll help you," he says,
"but you need to do something for me."
And I said, yeah, sure. What is it?
And, of course, he asked me just very lightly,
"I think you should take down the Robert E. Lee statue."
-Wow. -And I said--
My first reaction was, "Why would I do that?"
And he said, "Well, do you know who put them up?
Or why they're there?"
And he said, "Can you imagine them from my perspective
and what I think about them and how they made me feel?"
And then the next thing he said really kind of...
hit me in the head with a brick, was that,
Louis Armstrong left the city because of those statues.
And, of course, right away, I felt very silly.
My head felt like it exploded, because, of course,
that's the explanation, symbolically,
-of the great diaspora. -Right.
Five million African Americans left the south.
Now, can you imagine, how much we lost
with all of that talent, all of that, you know, raw talent,
people who were doctors, lawyers, musicians left
and took their talent to New York and Detroit,
and Chicago and Los Angeles, and we're the worse for it.
And so the message of the book is really an invitation
to people to be open to the fact
that because we made that mistake,
and we can't admit it,
that we are the ones who are losing,
not just the African Americans who have been sent away.
Because the country's better
when-when we understand and go towards diversity,
because diversity is a strength, it's not a weakness.
It adds value to all of us.
I've seen people say, 'Oh, no, look.
"I-I agree with you. I think the Confederacy was bad,
"and I think that these statues should be removed,
but at the same time, we can't just erase history."
Yeah. Well, there are a couple of things.
Some people never noticed the statues
as symbolic of anything.
They were just the places where their mother or father took them
-to watch Mardi Gras parades. -Right.
And it was like a historic building.
They never really thought much about it.
There were people who had ancestors
that fought in the Confederacy,
that thought that taking them down would misremember
or do injustice to the people that served.
I just simply think there are places for remembrance,
and there are places for reverence.
Museums are place for remembrance,
so that we never forget, and, consequently, never repeat.
Special places outside that are part of the public
that people walk by, who own them,
like a 12-year-old African American girl,
should not have to walk under a statue of an individual
that fought to destroy her life and her freedom.
That's not something that the city of New Orleans
has really ever been. And so, for those people
that say they want to remember history,
I say they ought to remember the totality of history.
We don't really have a lot of slave ships around,
or a lot of places where people were lynched,
or the place where most people in America
were sold into slavery, which is in New Orleans.
And if you want to tell the whole story,
we should to that in context, and if we're not gonna do that,
let's just remember the things that we did,
admit that we did them wrongly.
Say I'm sorry, hope that somebody says "I forgive you,"
and then move to where we all want to get in the country.
it's a fantastic book.
Your-your message is one that resonates,
and I think you're brutally honest in it,
which I appreciate.
It's gotten a lot of people asking now:
because your term is coming to an end--
you've reached your term limits--
is there a potential 2020 run?
-Do you see yourself going up against a demagogue? -I don't...
I'm-I'm... (laughs)
(laughter)
(cheering and applause)
You are... It's obviously very flattering
for people to talk to you in that context.
I've been doing this for 30 years.
My wife and I have five kids.
I don't have any plans about what I'm gonna do in the future.
The 300th anniversary is coming up.
We're getting ready to land a plane. Y'all should celebrate
the history and the beauty of New Orleans,
'cause you helped rebuild it.
-So on behalf of the people of New Orleans, -(applause)
thank you all so much.
Uh, I-I'm gonna rest a little bit
and then figure out what I'm gonna do in the future.
-He said yes. -I... (laughs)
-Thank you so much. -Thank you.
Thank you for being on the show.
In the Shadow of Statues comes out March 20.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu, everybody.