Billy and the redeemers

Nungesser told a bunch of  "tourism and cultural preservation officials" yesterday that he's going to put all the Jim Crow monuments back on public display soon.  That should go over really well.

I notice here, also, that Billy implies Mayor Cantrell is cooperating with him in this task.   That also should go over really well.  Even so he can't help but show a little ass toward her city even as the negotiations are ongoing.

“I’ve met with her several times. I really believe in my heart she wants it resolved in a way that satisfies -- as much as we can – everyone," he said. The event was hosted by the Robert E. Lee Monumental Association.

Attendees cheered Nungesser’s promise that public input will be taken on all proposals. He said he personally favors building a replica of Lee Circle in Mandeville’s Fontainebleau State Park, which his office oversees.

He says the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee would be back on top of his pedestal, with his back side facing New Orleans.

So... yeah... that ought to go over super well too.

Maybe somebody can follow up with the mayor on this.  When they do, I hope they would also ask her about the folks in Nungesser's cheering audience.  WWNO doesn't name any of them but describes them as "tourism and preservation officials" so you have to figure there are some prominent individuals among them.  The hosting "R.E. Lee Monumental Association" is listed on the Sec of State's website. Its president is William Mason.  His name does not appear on the organization's website. Nor does anyone else's.  It says here on the membership page that donations and members will remain anonymous.  I don't think Billy's audience was masked, though.  Mardi Gras is over and most of them have put their hoods away..... we think, anyway.

Of course the anonymous donations to the white supremacist organization are tax deductible.  That's in keeping with the standard practice for culture and tourism oriented non-profits in New Orleans.  Take plantation owner, Joe Jaeger's proposed hotel for example.  It says here, Jaeger and his partners want to configure their development as a non-profit also in order to aquire a property tax exemption.  Assessor Erroll Williams is not so keen on that at the moment.

The tourism cabal is also seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in additional rebates and subsidies beyond just the propety tax exemption.

The proposed deal calls for $41 million in upfront cash from the Convention Center, a free 50-year land lease with four optional 10-year extensions, and a 40-year break on property taxes. It also would include complete rebates of a 10 percent hotel-occupancy tax and a 4 percent sales tax on all hotel revenue from sources other than room rentals.

Besides the $330 million value identified by BGR, the proposed plan also calls for other subsidies from the Convention Center: $26 million to perform “site prep” to remediate any hazardous soil and to install utilities on the site, and $20 million to connect the hotel to the Convention Center at Henderson Street

All of this, the wealthiest developers in town insist, is absolutely necessary for them to finance their surefire money making project on some of the most desirable real estate in the city.   If they need that much help, the tourism economy in New Orleans must be in a lot worse shape than they say it is. Either that or they're just not very good businessmen.

Another possibility is that's just how business is done around here. The Advocate points out that the World War II Museum, another of our celebrated tourism and cultural non-profits, is looking to build its own tax-exempt hotel.

Williams said he also isn’t inclined to grant a property tax exemption sought by officials at the National World War II Museum for the hotel they are building across Magazine Street from the museum. The officials say the hotel would be an “educational” facility, according to Williams. No one from the museum was available for comment.

Maybe if they hadn't spent their endowment on the Bollinger Canopy Of Peace they wouldn't have to ask for stuff like this, I dunno.  Anyway, they need more public money now.  And even though Williams is leaning away from giving them more, it isn't clear he's made a final decision yet.

Which is why, as this process goes on, he, and the mayor, may wish to consider the very likely overlapping rosters of individuals involved in the Convention Center project, the World War II Museum, AND the members of Nungesser's audience who cheered when he suggested we could all kiss General Lee's ass for him yesterday.  Can't imagine that's going to win them much favor.  But one never knows. 

This would be so much better than a Rocky statue

A few days ago I mentioned this Lens column about two cities' neglect of their genuine history in favor of sanitized fantasy. Philadelphia has no statue of Joe Frazier but it does have one of Rocky Balboa. New Orleans has no statue of Homer Plessy but it does have one of Mr. Peanut.

In The Lens Mark Moseley specifically mentions Plessy along with other prominent Civil Rights figures whose connections to New Orleans have gone unrecognized in our civic space. Today, Jarvis DeBerry's T-P column follows up on that a bit by highlighting one institution which, if ever built and opened, can improve that situation at least a little.

Brenda Williams, interim chair of the Louisiana Civil Rights Museum Advisory Board, said Thursday that "we have gotten final approval for a feasibility study" that will help the board decide the best New Orleans location for a museum. She hopes that study is completed within six months and that the momentum for the project then picks up. The Louisiana Legislature approved such a museum in 1999.

New Orleans needs that museum. This isn't just the city where the SCLC was founded. It's where Ruby Bridges made a solitary walk into William Frantz Elementary School. It's the city chosen by 1961's Freedom Riders as their ultimate destination.

All that happened in the 20th century, but there was a rich history of struggle and protest in and around New Orleans before then. In 1811, more than 200 enslaved men on nearby plantations armed themselves with machetes, rose up against those plantation owners and began an unsuccessful march toward New Orleans. In 1842, St. Augustine Church was built with the contributions of black Catholics who wanted a place where they could sit and worship. In 1892, activists pushing for the integration of local rail cars chose Homer Plessy as their plaintiff.

The link inserted into the online version of Deberry's column points us to this story about a preferred location for the museum on the site of the former Myrtle Banks Elementary School at Thalia St and Oretha Castle Haley Blvd.

In the school's early years, a commercial strip then known as Dryades Street thrived down the block from where neighborhood children learned reading, writing and arithmetic. According to the O.C. Haley Merchants and Business Association Web site, by the 1950s there were almost 200 shops, many of them run by Jewish merchants who lived in apartments upstairs. At a time when African Americans were not welcome on Canal Street, Dryades was the place to go for a soda, a haircut or a new suit.

It also became the headquarters of the local civil rights movement. The boycott, which targeted white-owned shops that limited black people to menial labor, resulted in the hiring of 30 black clerks and cashiers. But there was a cost: some shopkeepers abandoned the area and moved to the suburbs, marking the beginning of the neighborhood's decline.

Across town on Canal Street, Oretha Castle Haley was one of the activists arrested and charged with criminal mischief for sitting at an all-white lunch counter at McCrory's in September 1960. The case received national attention, and the U.S. Supreme Court held that the activists' convictions were unconstitutional.

Dryades Street was eventually renamed in Haley's honor, with both its name and its history making it a fitting home for a civil rights museum.

Efforts at revitalizing the OCH corridor have been going in stops and starts for several years now with some moderate successes although nothing like the what's been happening concurrently along a similar stretch of Freret Street. Recent visits to the up-and-coming Freret by us have included a thoroughly satisfying meal at the High Hat Cafe as well as a thought-provoking performance by motivational comic Lane Sperkus. I've also spent an evening at Cure which serves nice food but, with its snooty dress code and focus on "designer cocktails," is mostly an iteration of evil at its most obnoxious.

The OCH corridor boasts one renowned eatery in Cafe Reconcile as well as a potentially potent arts and entertainment scene anchored by the Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center featured on the cover of this week's Gambit. But to catch up with what's happening on Freret, which is clearly the model to be emulated, the corridor has quite a way to go. The Civil Rights Museum would be one more element that could spur that kind of growth and, perhaps, fill an unfortunate gap in our city's recognition of its own history. If they ever get around to building it, that is.