Mitch Landrieu has kept the public and reporters awaiting information for months on the future of both the stolen historic works of art from the historic momument sites he destroyed last year as well as the prominent sites scarred after their removal.
In time for his book release, Mitch made an announcement about the future of the monuments. Then, he went on 60 Minutes to talk about them and in doing so preach his intolerance towards Southern culture. He also recently attended the Gridiron event in Washington, D.C.
The book was written while Mitch was employed as Mayor of New Orleans, which also placed him as head of the Sewerage & Water Board. Since he removed the monuments at gunpoint, the city flooded twice from S&WB incompetence and crime escalated. Meanwhile Mitch wrote a book and plotted his course to dance on the national stage.
Mitch will soon begin his book tour to brag about his work to rid Confederate symbols from New Orleans. Meanwhile, dozens of memorials in many different forms still exist around the Southern port city that positively celebrated Louisiana’s secession on January 26, 1861.
When referencing the monument removals, Mitch frequently said, “New Orleans celebrates our diversity, inclusion and tolerance.” Mitch cannot be inclusive, tolerant, or diverse when he is erasing a very specific and undeniable part of New Orleans’ history. Removing statues that were funded and erected by groups of New Orleanians removes the display of diverse cultures in town. Mitch’s actions wholly contradict his sentiment.
The hypocrisy of this man is sickening. Mitch Landrieu voted in support of Confederate license plates as a State Representative. The plate Mitch supported features an image of the Confederate Battle Flag. But suddenly, in 2015, Mitch started his self-serving Confederaphobic cause.
“They are a perversion of history — placed in prominent locations in our communities to paint a false narrative of our shared history,” Landrieu said of the removed monuments in a statement on March 6, 2018.
Louisiana was a slave state, and the port of New Orleans fed the slave industry. Testaments to this unfortunate, but accurate history can be seen in town, promoted by Mitchell J. Landrieu.
The City carried out a costly $15 million refurbishment of Gallier Hall. The building is named for James Gallier, a prominent architect in New Orleans who lived from 1798-1866. Gallier designed the hall and it was built using slave labor. Gallier also designed the Merchants Exchange which served as a slave auction house, even after the Union occupied New Orleans during the War Between The States. It’s been noted that Gallier and his wife each owned two slaves, but more shocking, Gallier personally owned up to 25 slaves. Gallier used the human chattel as his work force at his saw mill. Mitch Landrieu put millions of dollars into a building honoring a man whose professional career extended the practice of slavery in New Orleans, a man who supported the practice personally.
In June 2015 Mitch said: “Gallier Hall is a monument to all that we have achieved as a city and preserving it is an important task to not only pay homage to those that came before but for the generations that follow.”
“It’s another way of telling the story, the narrative, of how the city developed and changed — or how it hasn’t changed — over 300 years,” cheryl Landrieu told the Advocate on Sunday in a piece praising the restoration.
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During Mardi Gras, the Mayor and City Council watch parades from the front of Gallier Hall. Some may consider it inappropriate to have African Americans stand in front of, as Mitch called it, a monument—an extremely prominent monument—honoring a slaver.
The most objectionable prominent city site Mitch Landrieu honored and poured millions into is the Lafitte Greenway. Mitch enhanced a bike path at the cost of $9.1 million and named it for New Orleans’ most well known slaver: Jean Lafitte. Lafitte the pirate hunted and intercepted the “black ivory” from slave ships. He created slave barracks, sold slaves, and even held his own auctions, selling countless Africans into bondage in America. Slavery was a very profitable business for Jean Lafitte.
Mitch said on May 11, 2017, after the removal of the Jefferson Davis monument, “These monuments stand not as mournful markers of our legacy of slavery and segregation, but in reverence of it. They are an inaccurate recitation of our past, an affront to our present and a poor prescription for our future.”
Mitch also said, “We should remember history and not revere a false version of it.”
This man is a fraud. Mitch can dismiss his vote in the legislature, but Landrieu paved the way for Louisiana to have Confederate license plates. Mitch Landrieu needs to answer about his financial and institutional support of these prominent locations revering slave traders and slave owners. By Mitch’s standards, these men should not be honored, yet Gallier and Lafitte have very prominent positions in Mitch Landrieu’s New Orleans. Romanticizing Jean Lafitte should also fall under Mitch’s “perversion of history.”
The anti-historical movement exudes ignorance, hypocrisy, and contradictions. The new movement should not be honored or revered, which is exactly what Mitch is trying to do on the national stage. History should be preserved rather than having politicians, who pander for votes, haphazardly and inconsistently decide what will be destroyed and what will remain.
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