We start late for every political leader. Neera good morning, everyone. My name is neera tanden and it is my great honor to welcome you to the center for american progress. We are really excited to have a special guest today. The 61st mayor of new orleans, mitch landrieu. During his 30year career in Public Service, mayor landrieu has made it his mission to expand opportunity for people a people in his hometown of new orleans and across louisiana. As mayor hes worked tirelessly to make his city safer, to revitalize distressed neighborhoods and to attract new business and investment. His many initiatives are a big reason why new orleans is one of americas Fastest Growing cities. Of course, last month mayor landrieu garnered National Attention for a powerful speech he delivered that explained why he fought to remove four confederate monuments from public spaces in his city. Of course, last month mayor landrieu garnered National Attention for a powerful speech he delivered that explained why he fought to remove four confederate monuments from public spaces in his city. Many have praised mayor landrieu for the incredible eloquence and passion he displayed that day. And for good reason. But i have to say, i was particularly impressed by mayor landrieus speech for another reason. I was deeply moved by the unflinching honesty he used to confront a truly shameful period in american history. His words reaffirmed a simple, undeniable fact. That any attempt to romanticize the lost cause of the confederacy is a decision to embrace a culture that systemically stripped the humanity from generations of innocent men, women and children. As mayor landrieu asked so heartbreakingly in his speech, how could an africanamerican Family Living in new orleans explain to their daughter why a statue of robert e. Lee stood atop their city. And when i heard that, i had to say, at the time i thought, what incredible leadership, but honestly, also, why did it take to 2017 until we heard that . Im thrilled that we have the mayor here to talk about that. We all know that there were no good answers to the question he posed and that any person who tries to gloss over that monstrous, evil of slavery is simply perpetuating the same things that made it possible in the first place. Im really excited to have this discussion so we can talk in more depth about his speech, why he made it and also the response. So were really thrilled to have the mayor here. And well have a q a afterwards, where i hope we can have a good back and forth. So please join me in welcoming mayor landrieu to discuss what he did, why did he it and race in america. Thank you. [applause] mr. Landrieu good morning, everybody. How are you . Thank you so much for having me, neera. I want to dedicate my speech today to my dear friend, steve scalise. Who, as you know, is suffering in the hospital from a gunshot wound. To his wife and to his family, he is my congressman. And he also is a dear friend. We spent 10 years together in the legislature. And i know it should go without saying, but as hard as we fight about the ideas, some of which well talk about today, sometimes the public tends to forget and sometimes we forget ourselves that those of us that are battling on the floor of the house and the senate, on the floor of the legislature, across city halls we really are friends. We know each other well. We grow up together. Our children know each other. Steve and jennifer celebrated mardi gras celebrations with us in new orleans. Sometimes it takes, unfortunately, an awful event like this just to remember that there are boundaries that we work in and those boundaries were crossed. If you keep him in your prayers and thoughts i would appreciate it. I also want to welcome my little sister, senator mary landrieu, and her husband, frank. [applause] the great donna brazil. [applause] stupendous and spectacular. My daughter, gracie, who is joining us today. Deputy mayor ryan bernie whos helping me run the city. And neera, thank you so much for having me. The center for american progress, thank you. There are a lot of folks in this building that do a lot of tremendous work. Outside of washington, we get things done. [laughter] we often look to you for research. A couple weeks ago i gave a speech at a hall in the city of new orleans. Thats new orleans historic city hall where for over 160 years we gathered as a people. Its where portraits hang of former mayors going back 100 years. Where drawings, when the historic street car that goes down st. Charles avenue traverses. Its a place where confederate president Jefferson Davis was laid to rest, when he died. In the city of new orleans. Multiple president s have been there. Foreign dignitaries. Its where every year, if youre from new orleans, its where we celebrate mardi gras. With the millions of our guests and all of the revelers. It is a place of unity and union. But on that day last month, when i gave the speech from that specific location, just a couple of blocks away there were workers who were masked to protect their identities from domestic terrorists. They were on a crane, removing a massive 17foot, threeton statue of confederate general robert e. Lee. It stood there for 133 years. 60 feet above our city, on a pedestal. In one of the most prominent places in our city. Since late the night before, the crowds had grown to hundreds. And as a brass band played on that friday afternoon, lee was finally brought to the ground. This was decades in the making. It was almost exactly one year before our 300th anniversary as a city, and nearly 12 years after the federal levees broke in hurricane katrina. And it was an important moment for the city of new orleans. And on that day, i sought to share my thoughts. And it was a very emotional day. The speech was actually entitled truth. And it came from the heart and the soul and the history of the people of the city of new orleans. For me it was important to speak directly to the people of new orleans and for the historic record. To actually lay out the reasons why these statues were erected in the first place. Why we were taking them down. And what we could do to recover from the ageold battles that had divided us for so long. And because of new orleans role in that dark period of our history, we were, after all, one of the countries countrys largest slave markets. I felt that i, and other people in the city, had a special responsibility to help our nation continue to move through racial discord. Indeed, the reaction from some was most telling. There were threats. There were angry, heavily armed demonstrators waving the confederate flag. Some waving nazi symbols. Intimidation that harkened back to the jim crow era. One of our contractors we had hired to remove the monuments had their car fire bombed. After death threats. I, the mayor of a major american city, in the midst of one of the greatest rebuildings that the country has ever seen, could not lease a crane because all of the crane operators had been blacklisted. But through all the sound and the fury, the reaction revealed a very basic truth about new orleans. The south, and i believe our country as a whole. If you scratch just below the surface, like we did, there is hidden from view a very deep cut that goes to the very heart of our nation. Centuries old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place. There is a difference, there is a difference between remembrance of history and the reverence of it. Monuments that celebrate a fictional, sanitized confederacy, but ignore the death, the enslavement and the terror that it actually stood for, are an affront to our true history. They are wrong. Morally and factually. They serve only to divide and confuse us and they unfortunately have been all too successful in doing that. And herein lies the broader point. Heres why its so important to confront this issue. Because if all we do is change the symbols and change the structures and dont change the attitude, it will have all been in vain. If we take down the symbols that celebrate White Supremacy and hate and then begin to change the attitudes, we can finally start to really deal with the issue of race, with the real issue of deeper attitude and concerns. It will allow us to address poverty and jobs, it will allow us to address violence, health outcomes, and many, many more. Because of race, we are too often a block away from each other, but a world apart. And if you live in the south, you know exactly what it is that i mean. Im sure that thats true across the United States of america. In our blessed land, we all come to the table of democracy as equals. My sister taught me that. That is of course one of the basic tenants of americas greatness. We are an exceptional country because indivisibility, freedom and justice for all lies at the very heart of who we are. And what we believe. But you and i know that we have not always lived up to these aspirations and to these ideals. That doesnt make us bad. It means we need to match our exceptional aspirations with exceptional words and deeds. Live with integrity. Give every american the tools and the opportunity they need to fully participate in americas great bounty. And that requires us to have tough conversations about race and the disparities that hold all of us back. So when people who are against these monuments said to me, mayor, i dont know anybody thats bothered by these monuments. I said, thats one of the problems. [laughter] mayor, why cant you just let sleeping dogs lie . Mayor, you ought to be concentrating on murder, not on monuments. So ill respectfully ask if youve ever thought about the possibility that these monuments in a way are murder. Perhaps think about the monuments from a different perspective. As i spoke of in my speech and you alluded to. Think about the confederate monuments from the perspective of an africanamerican mother and father. Holding the hand of their 12yearold daughter, looking at robert e. Lee, atop of the beautiful city that she owns. Theres no way you can look at that little girl in the eye and convince her that robert e. Lee is there to encourage her. Theres no way for anyone to think that shes going to feel inspired or hopeful by his story. Or how he got up there. And why hes still there. After all of this time. These monuments reveal to her a future where her potential is limited and capped. And the great travesty of all of this, one that we cant seem to recognize even at moment, is that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too. So looking at that issue from the childs eyes is is where the truth comes into focus for us. This is the moment where we know what is right and where we know what we have to do. We cannot walk away from this truth. Ive driven by those monuments thousands of times. Thousands of times. It wasnt until i got this perspective from her eyes that i knew and that i could not personally walk away from this truth as i now saw it to be. You see, these monuments to the lost cause represent an institutional effort to perpetuate White Supremacy. It has existed for a lightning for a long time and slowly strangles certain peoples lives. Lives like those little girls. And then ours as well. By design, they are not just metal instead. They were crafted to send a message. Theyre not just metal and stone. They were crafted to send a message. That only certain people are welcome here. And certain people are not. And only certain people are entitled to certain things. And others are not. That some people have value and others do not. That some of us are disposable. Like a virus pushing into our collective subconscious. These ideas manifest a pervasive and devastating cultural ethos that over many, many, many years deny people quality of life and a future. They deny our humanity. So let me think about what Robert Kennedy said to us. For there is a type of violence that is slower. But just as deadly and as destructive as the gun or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions. Indifference and inaction. And slow decay. This is the violence that affects the poor. That poisons the relations between men because their skin has different colors. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the truth as well. Race lies at the root of so many problems. But we never really fully reckon with it. Until there is a flareup in the form of ferguson, in the form of charleston, the snipers in dallas, the horrors in baton rouge, our attention is fleeting and the conversation is shallow and there is really and rarely any action or followup to move us forward. So, america, it is true that our country is exceptional. But it is just as important to acknowledge that we will struggle with americas original sin and the vestiges of slavery, which continue to today. Reconciliation begins with an acknowledgment that there was wrongdoing. Then a commitment to do better. But in order to have reconciliation, you have to say, im sorry. And then someone else has to say, well, i for give you. You. Well, i forgive reconciliation is not someone saying, hey, man, forget about it. It really wasnt that important. I never really wronged you. Pick yourself up by your own boot straps. Even if you got no boots because i took them away from you. Not in my neighborhood. Thats not the way it works. And it is in that this context that we should think about and try to fully understand the old adage that where there is no justice, there is no peace. I used to hear that as if you dont give me what i want, im going to take it from you and were going to have a fight. By any means necessary. I dont see it that way anymore. This is what i think it means. When people are not given what is justly theirs, what is promised to them by the laws and the constitution of the country, where we live, when they dont have access to things that they need, like land and water and food and property and health care, then you cant possibly have peace. All you can expect to have is alienation and anxiety which leads to hate and loathing, which leads to unrest. And leads to violence. So physical violence always starts with this kind of psychological violence. Which comes from the conditions of our surroundings and the messages we receive in and where we grow up. And the damage can be subtle. Often unseen. Unheard. But it can be devastating nonetheless. And it explains a lot about things happening in our country right now. Especially when thinking about things like policecommunity relations, which is an allimportant issue that impacts every american. Racial profiling judges a person by their race and not their behavior. On the flip side, police are judged by their uniform and not their behavior. Both are bad. But who gets arrested and who doesnt, whos targeted and who is not is often because of ageold mindsets. Its called implicit bias. Its locked in by experience. Passed on over generations. And the impact is real. And its immediate. For example, research has shown that prevalence of drug use is the same in africanamerican communities and white communities. But africanamericans are much more likely to be arrested for drugs. This impacts families, housing, education and more. Its a vicious cycle. Why do you think that is . On a related topic, i spent most of my time as mayor singularly focused on reducing murder in new orleans. Two of which we had last night. Over 80 of our victims are africanamerican young men too. Often forsaken, left behind. No hope. In the life. Ive had hard time getting anyones attention. Anywhere in america. On how to save these young men. But when the victim is a young child or its a White College student or a professional athlete, everything stops. At least for a minute. But it stops nonetheless. When will we see that humanity in all people . Whatever the color of their skin, our citys potential is diminished. When will the understand, whoever is killed, our citys potential is diminished. Do not ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee. That was written a long time ago. The same question can play out in cities and towns of all sizes, in all corners across the country. So i ask you, why do you think that is . We need a conversation, not about these issues in silos, but how they are all poisonous fruit of the same tree, fed by centuries of oppression and racial division. The easy thing to do is just to point fingers and to blame each other. But while the question of fault could go on forever, and seemingly has, the question of responsibility can be resolved by all of us right now. Today. Were all responsible. For ourselves and for each other. And to solve this problem. And we can actually make great progress quickly on things like criminal Justice Reform. On poverty. On education and so many other topics of concern. But only when we realize that the ties that bind us are stronger than the things that divide us, that we are stronger together. The president actually said that the other night. Let me let that hang there for a second. [laughter] our racial divisions keep us from seeing that. Which gets us to our current political moment. There are working class white people who are being left behind in this country. Its been talked about and written about, particularly in the context of the last election. And the fact is that that is really true. We need to see that to know that, to understand that. But its also true that africanamerican working class is getting left behind too. And has for a long time. When you go to some of the more difficult areas in appalachia, the rustbelt, or you go to our state, anywhere in the deep south, and youre seeing people, some white, some africanamerican, some now latino, vietnamese, theyre struggling. With a lot of the same stuff. But throughout history, demagogues with their own political agendas make white people think that brown people and black people are just trying to take their stuff. And vice versa. We put people in a pit together and have them convinced that if one of them has something the other one cant have it. We have them fighting over a little bit of meat on an otherwise empty bone. Instead of having them stand side by side, working together to grow the pie. So that they all can benefit. As opposed to benefiting from the presence and communion on that they would enjoy together. And the sad thing is that they, working class africanamericans and whites, havent found each other. And yet dont understand that their futures are united as one. They share common interests. As dr. King said, they are bound in a single garment of destiny. If that actually happened, if they found each other, if they got together, if there was a coalition of working people and disenfranchised across the races, it would be a political earthquake. There would be an unstoppable force. Both groups would get when they wanted, needed and deserved. President kennedy said, if a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. In his inaugural address. So therein lies the next step. We in cities and towns across america must not only reclaim our most public spaces for the United States of america, but that must b