Editorial roundup
Dec. 5
The Advocate Renaming New Orleans streets
More than three years have passed since they yanked Robert E. Lee off his pedestal in New Orleans, but hopefully, the community is close to uniting around a worthy replacement.
Mitch Landrieu was ahead of his time in recognizing that relics of the city’s racist past needed to go. But as we said at the time, New Orleans might have benefitted from a more inclusive decision- making process and one that emphasized not just who would be removed, but also what would replace them.
That decision was left to LaToya Cantrell but the mayor had more important things to worry about, like cleaning up the big mess a block downriver from Lee Circle, at the Sewerage and Water Board.
The mayor and City Council addressed the question of who should be honored with street names and memorials in a better fashion: a commission to sort through it all. That kept the focus where it belonged: on the community and its collective values.
Now, the New Orleans City Council Street Renaming Commission has weighed in, suggesting new names for 37 streets and places that honor Confederate veterans and officials or politicians and organizations associated with segregation or the denial of civil rights to minorities.
Arguably the biggest question before the panel was who should sit atop the plinth at what used to be called Lee Circle.
Who could argue with the panel’s choice: Leah Chase? The celebrated chef, who died last year, was famous not only for her cooking but for her gift for bringing people together.
Her cooking won her a James Beard lifetime achievement award and her hospitality kept the tables full at 2301 Orleans Ave., including diners from George W. Bush to Barack Obama. When times were particularly tense in the South, her family restaurant, Dooky Chase, served as a safe gathering space for civil rights advocates.
Across town, near Lake Pontchartrain, the panel recommended renaming Robert E. Lee Boulevard for Allen Toussaint.
Toussaint, who died in 2015, helped shape modern New Orleans music and build the careers of younger performers.
Communities around Louisiana are rethinking who should be honored in their public spaces. In Baton Rouge, which has an avenue named for Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome has also appointed a commission to sort through the options. General Alfred Mouton’s statue, among others, provokes controversy in Lafayette.
The East Baton Rouge school board recently renamed Lee High School, which had once been Robert E. Lee High School.
Louisiana has too many problems for our people to be fighting over street names and monuments. The best course is to let citizens come together and offer recommendations that honor the best among us and for politicians to stay out of the way.