Context: Just hours before the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee was removed — the fourth such monument dismantled in New Orleans — Mayor Mitch Landrieu delivered a historic speech at Gallier Hall. What follows is the full transcript of his powerful and emotional remarks, reflecting on history, justice, and unity.
Thank you for coming.
The soul of our beloved city is rooted in a complex and evolving history. It’s a story written over thousands of years, shaped by a remarkable mosaic of people who have walked this land — together — in times of joy, sorrow, struggle, and resilience.
This includes Native American nations like the Choctaw, Houma, and Chitimacha. European explorers such as de Soto and La Salle. The Acadians and Islenos. Enslaved Africans from Senegambia. Free People of Color. Haitians, Germans, French and Spanish settlers. Italians, Irish, Cubans, Vietnamese, and many more.
New Orleans is not merely a city. It is a fusion of civilizations. A place that embodies the national motto: e pluribus unum — out of many, we are one.
And yet, we must confront the darker truths embedded in our soil. New Orleans was once America’s largest slave market. Thousands of human beings were sold here into lives of forced labor, abuse, and dehumanization.
We must ask: where are the monuments that commemorate this truth? Where are the plaques acknowledging the lynchings or the auction blocks? Their absence speaks volumes.
“There is a difference between remembering history and revering it.”
The monuments we removed — of Lee, Davis, and Beauregard — were not innocent tributes to history. They were erected in service of a false narrative — the “Lost Cause” — designed to legitimize white supremacy and romanticize the Confederacy’s rebellion against the United States.
These figures did not fight for the United States. They fought against it. And the monuments honored not their humanity, but a cause that denied the humanity of others.
After the Civil War, these statues were used to signal who held power in this city — to intimidate, to exclude. They became fixtures of fear as much as symbols of history.
Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, made it clear in his “Cornerstone Speech” that their cause rested upon “the great truth” of white supremacy and the subjugation of Black people. This was the ideological foundation of the very monuments in question.
As President George W. Bush said, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”
I did not always see this clearly. Despite growing up in one of our most diverse neighborhoods, I passed those monuments countless times without questioning them. But when I listened — to voices like Wynton Marsalis — I began to understand what they truly represented to others.
Imagine being an African American parent explaining to your child who Robert E. Lee was, and why his statue towers over our city. Could you say with honesty that it’s there to inspire her? Would she feel seen, valued, empowered?
The answer is painfully obvious.
Removing these monuments was not an act of erasure, but of truth-telling. Of beginning the process of reconciliation and restoration. It is a gesture of love for our city and hope for its future.
Musician Terence Blanchard once said of these monuments, “They were put there by people who don’t respect us.” That sentiment is real. And it reflects generations of quiet pain — pain we have the power, and the responsibility, to address.
“We are better together than we are apart. Indivisibility is our essence.”
From jazz to gumbo, from Mardi Gras to our architecture — everything we hold dear was born from diversity, from blending, from collective creativity. This is our true legacy.
And yet we continue to find excuses not to act. But, as Dr. King reminded us, “Wait” too often means “Never.”
So now is the time to act. Not just by removing statues, but by changing attitudes. By creating new symbols — together — that reflect the shared values of a just and inclusive society.
These removals followed years of public hearings, debates, legal reviews, and the overwhelming support of our city council and courts. This is democracy in action. This is justice, at last, taking shape in our public spaces.
Let this be a moment that defines the next 300 years of New Orleans. A moment when we choose honesty over myth, unity over division, future over past.
“The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity.”
We must never forget that truth. Nor should we ever again lift it onto a pedestal.
As President Abraham Lincoln urged, let us strive “to bind up the nation’s wounds … to achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Thank you.