Race/Related: History, or a Racial Reminder?

Tributes to the Confederacy in New Orleans View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Sunday, May 14, 2017 [Join Race/Related »]( [The Robert E. Lee memorial in New Orleans, which is scheduled to be removed.]( The Robert E. Lee memorial in New Orleans, which is scheduled to be removed. William Widmer for The New York Times [History, or a Racial Reminder?]( This is the latest edition of the Race/Related newsletter. To get it in your inbox weekly, [sign up here](. Tell your friends and [share your stories](. The workers, wearing helmets and bullet-resistant vests, have worked at night in New Orleans. Protesters have been kept at a distance, streetcars have sometimes been stopped and traffic has been rerouted. Litigation and outrage have not been in short supply. New Orleans is halfway through a bitterly contested plan to remove four Confederate monuments from public spaces in the city. A monument to a Reconstruction-era insurrection was taken down last month. This week, workers dismantled a statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. The city intends to soon remove two other monuments — statues of the Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and P. G. T. Beauregard. City officials, pressed by Mayor Mitch Landrieu, declared the monuments to be nuisances months after nine black churchgoers were killed in a racially motivated massacre in Charleston, S.C. The courts ultimately allowed the removals to go forward, and the city said it was weighing where to display the monuments so they could “placed in their proper historical context from a dark period of American history.” But the mayor’s approach has been controversial in New Orleans, where protests have turned tense and the authorities have feared an outbreak of violence. In separate interviews, a leading critic and a prominent supporter of the monuments reflected on the turmoil in New Orleans, the legacy of a protracted debate and the place of Confederate-focused symbols that still stand across a changing South. The interviews, conducted after the removal of the Davis statue, have been condensed and edited. [Alan Blinder]( [The platform that held the monument to Jefferson Davis until it was removed early Thursday.] The platform that held the monument to Jefferson Davis until it was removed early Thursday. William Widmer for The New York Times Angela Kinlaw Ms. Kinlaw helped steer the Take ‘Em Down NOLA movement, which urged city leaders to remove the monuments. She is an educator who has lived in New Orleans for about four years. Why do you want these monuments to come down? It’s a necessary part of the struggle toward racial and economic justice. The statues are intended to send a message to black folks to stay in their places. We don’t see the time, energy and resources going into promoting the kind of images, the kinds of systems that people need to really thrive. This art is not reflective of the majority of people in the city. The majority of the people in this city are black folks, and it doesn’t reflect them. When people say, “This is a topic that’s just come up,” it’s absolutely inaccurate. This is a fight that’s been going on for decades. New Orleans is a liberal city in a conservative state. Are you surprised to see the monuments actually being removed? I think that I’m always cautiously optimistic, and I say that because no matter what breakthroughs we have, we’re clear that our work is never done. Even though we can have an appreciation that the mayor finally gave into an ordinance for four of these monuments to white supremacy, the reality is that they’re all over the city. You should take down these four, and you should take down the others. But are you surprised to see even these four coming down? We’ve always believed it was possible. It required will. The mayor has talked about how he thinks the removal of the monuments will foster reconciliation. How will that happen? Reconciliation is going to require for us to really put some truth on the table about what we’re dealing with. If reconciliation is going to happen through policy or through legislation, there’s going to have to be a shift in power, a shift in resources. Supporters of the monuments walked around New Orleans waving Confederate battle flags. David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader and Louisiana native, was a prominent critic of the decision to remove the monuments. What do you think of your opponents? I’m not as concerned about the folks who come out and wave their flags. They are problematic, no doubt. I’m more concerned about the rich ruling class that has decision-making power and resource power to determine people’s destinies within the city. As long as folks, people see it as symbols, they think it’s in isolation. But all of these things are connected. People wouldn’t be working so hard to defend them if they didn’t matter. As they see them coming down, they question their own power. What do the successes with the monuments mean for the future? It’s helped us understand that we can’t put our complete trust and faith in elected officials. We as the people have to unify and demand what it is we need. The government’s not just going to move and roll over and do right by people. We have to demand that. It becomes challenging when everybody’s fighting for different things at different times. Now people realize the power of coming together collectively. [Workers dismantle an an obelisk dedicated to the Battle of Liberty Place, which commemorated whites who tried to topple a biracial post-Civil War government.] Workers dismantle an an obelisk dedicated to the Battle of Liberty Place, which commemorated whites who tried to topple a biracial post-Civil War government. Gerald Herbert/Associated Press Richard A. Marksbury A former dean at Tulane University and a member of the Monumental Task Committee, a volunteer-run group that supports keeping the city’s existing monuments, Mr. Marksbury was part of the legal effort to keep the statues. Why should these monuments be left in place? I’m a cultural anthropologist — I’m 66 years old, I was in the Peace Corps, I did my research overseas, and I helped two different peoples try to record and save their cultural heritage — so my whole life has been dedicated to trying to preserve cultural heritage, which means I don’t believe in tearing down anything. We have very wealthy donors who would pay for bronze plaques explaining who these men were, what they fought for, what happened to try to educate people. I’m an educator, so I think there’s ways to educate people without tearing anything down. So what or who is driving the uproar? The mayor? This was a man-made crisis. We didn’t have an issue. This was a one-man show from the top down for self-serving reasons. In 1993, the City Council passed an ordinance, and the way this nuisance ordinance is triggered is any citizen can come to the council and make a presentation and say, “This monument violates the ordinance.” We had three black mayors who never invoked it. Nobody ever cared about it, nobody ever used it until Mayor Landrieu did. What about the other critics? The mayor isn’t alone, so what are the motives of the others? I think it’s part of the social-economic problems we have in America and in our cities, whether it’s high unemployment among young people and a lot of crime and school systems that are broken. These are mostly young people, and this gives them some opportunity to protest some aspect of the government. Deep down, I don’t think it has anything to do with the monuments because when these monuments are down, they’re going to migrate to another thing. The monuments are just symbolic of issues, and it’s a way out to vent, quite frankly, and the mayor opened the door to vent that way. How much of an effect do you think David Duke had on the debate? He’s been on Twitter a lot. Any effect he had was minimal. He’s a flash point, and people love to mention his name. Mitch Landrieu created this man-made disaster, and the press wants to create the David Duke involvement. It’s just nonexistent. If he’s tweeting, he’s tweeting. Supporters of the monuments have sometimes been lumped together as racists. How do you feel about that? Does it bother you that the rhetoric has become what it is? I didn’t know I had been lumped in with anybody. I’ve had threats, and I’ve had to call 911. But no one’s called me any names. I have a pretty good reputation with the people that know me. I ran a division at Tulane where I gave people second and third chances for education. No one has looked me in the face and called me any names. Maybe they do it behind my back, but I’ve never been lumped in with anybody that I know of because I’ve never made it a race issue. I’ve made it an issue about education and destroying or sanitizing history. How does this episode shape the city’s culture? That’s the $64,000 question. It’s a sad situation. This issue has brought more racial tension than anything I’ve seen or witnessed in the 44 years I’ve lived here, and I think most adults, black or white, living here would say the same thing. It’s sad. Also, we don’t know how it will end. If anybody thinks it’s going to end when these monuments are down, they’re kidding themselves. Take ‘Em Down says they want to take down another 128. This will not go away anytime soon. ADVERTISEMENT [Ohene Asare, left, his wife, Régine Jean-Charles, and their four children at their home in Milton, Mass.] Ohene Asare, left, his wife, Régine Jean-Charles, and their four children at their home in Milton, Mass. Damon Casarez for The New York Times House Rules “While most white families own a home, a majority of black and Latino families do not. Differences in homeownership rates remain the prime driver of the nation’s racial wealth gap. In 2011, the median white household had a net worth of $111,146, compared with $7,113 for the median black household and $8,348 for the median Hispanic household. If black and Hispanic families owned homes at rates similar to whites, the racial wealth gap would be reduced by almost a third.” Read more in “[How Homeownership Became the Engine of American Inequality]( We want to hear from you. We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [racerelated@nytimes.com](mailto:racerelated@nytimes.com?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback). Want more Race/Related? Follow us on Instagram, where we continue the conversation about race through stunning visuals. [Instagram]( [INSTAGRAM]( [The playwright and screenwriter Lynn Nottage, who won a Pulitzer Prize last month.] The playwright and screenwriter Lynn Nottage, who won a Pulitzer Prize last month. Bryan Derballa for The New York Times Connect with us. Join us on Facebook at 9 p.m. Eastern on Wednesdays. Our correspondents Rachel Swarns and John Eligon will speak this week with [Lynn Nottage]( whose Pulitzer Prize-winning “[Sweat]( is currently on Broadway. In our last live chat, The Times’s baseball writer James Wagner discussed the role of race in baseball. He is one of the few bilingual speakers covering Major League Baseball. [[Watch]( Know anyone else who might like to subscribe? Then please forward our email to family and friends, and have them sign up at: [(. Around the Web Here are some of the stories that we’re talking about, beyond The Times. Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Mass Incarceration [[Read]( In the West, All Brown People Look the Same [[Read]( The Case for Black English [[Read]( A Face-to-Face Encounter With 4,000-Year-Old Indigenous Family [[Read]( In The Times The Times publishes many stories that touch on race. Here are a few you shouldn’t miss, chosen by Race/Related editors. [Sanctuary Bills in Maryland Faced a Surprise Foe: Legal Immigrants]( By SABRINA TAVERNISE Maryland seemed to be a natural sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. But some vocal critics said the proposals devalued their own struggles to gain citizenship. [7 Years After Arrest and Outcry, Young Woman Again Faces Deportation]( By MIRIAM JORDAN A woman who became a symbol of the immigration debate after a 2010 traffic stop at her Georgia college is now at risk of being sent back to Mexico. [First African to Play in the Major Leagues Is a ‘Pinnacle’ for Baseball]( By TYLER KEPNER Gift Ngoepe of the Pittsburgh Pirates has become the first African major league player. His path, meandering and sometimes painful, has never been conventional. [A Powerful, and Provocative, Voice for Southern Food]( By KIM SEVERSON John T. Edge has made a huge mark as director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, and also spurred criticism for his take on culinary history. 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