The Atlantic Interview: Mitch Landrieu

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Atlantic Interview: Mitch Landrieu on Defending Democracy and Confronting History

Podcast: The David Frum Show (The Atlantic)
Episode: The Atlantic Interview: Mitch Landrieu
Date: April 4, 2018
Host: Jeffrey Goldberg (Editor-in-Chief, The Atlantic)
Guest: Mitch Landrieu (Mayor of New Orleans)

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Overview

In this wide-ranging and deeply personal interview, Jeffrey Goldberg sits down with outgoing New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu to explore the challenges and meaning behind his decision to remove Confederate monuments from public spaces, the complexities of race and memory in America, and how history shapes both personal and political action. Landrieu reflects on his own family’s civil rights legacy, the ongoing struggle for racial reconciliation, and offers insights into the evolving landscape of Southern—and national—politics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Decision to Remove Confederate Monuments

(02:22–06:56)

• Rebuilding After Katrina: Landrieu frames the removal effort within the broader context of New Orleans’ post-Katrina reconstruction, emphasizing the goal to, “build the city back not the way it was... but the way that the city should have been had we gotten it right the first time” (02:51).
• Catalyst for Change: Jazz musician Wynton Marsalis influenced Landrieu’s thinking, challenging him to consider the meaning and message of the monuments.

  “He said, because if you ever thought about what they are and what they mean, who put them up and why they’re there. And I said, actually, you know, not much.” (04:00 — Landrieu)

• Impact on Black New Orleanians: Landrieu describes learning how the statues made Black residents feel unwelcome, contributing to a “diaspora” of talent leaving the city (04:31–05:43).
• Historical Purpose: Research and input from figures like Walter Isaacson and Ken Burns led Landrieu to realize the monuments “were not put up to basically remember Robert E. Lee himself, but they were put up as a political message... a go to hell pitch” to Black Americans (05:52).

2. Community Reaction and the Meaning of History

(06:56–13:36)

• Democratic Process: Landrieu details extensive public hearings, court cases, and legislative reviews before action was taken, noting, “there’s been a much more democratic process” than people realize (08:24).
• Different White Perspectives: Differentiates between white residents of New Orleans (largely supportive or accepting of removal) and those in Louisiana and broader southern states (more opposed), emphasizing the city’s unique diversity (07:15–08:18).
• Arguments Against Removal: Addresses claims about historical erasure:

  “So is taking them down [history].” (11:33 — Landrieu)

• Selective Memory: Points out that monuments honored only the Confederacy, ignoring the Union and African American contributions:

  “The Union is not recognized at all.” (13:01 — Landrieu)

3. The Beauregard Statue and Nuanced History

(14:35–18:32)

• Complexity Around Beauregard: Landrieu admits he “was a little conflicted” about removing the P.G.T. Beauregard statue due to Beauregard’s post-war moderation, but determined ultimately that the context and purpose of all the Confederate statues was the same: reinforcing white supremacy (15:00–16:20).
• “Historical Malfeasance”: Landrieu challenges historians who claim erasure, arguing they omit critical histories, especially of African Americans:

  “I accuse them of historic malfeasance, a lie by omission... why don’t you remember all of our history?” (16:38–17:10)

4. Family Legacy and Personal Courage

(18:32–23:49)

• Comparisons to Father Moon Landrieu:

  “You were brave to do what you did, but... you're not nearly as brave as your father was...” (18:32 — Goldberg)

• Civil Rights Foundations: Moon Landrieu’s courage in defying segregation and his deep relationships across racial lines influenced Mitch Landrieu’s actions:

  “I did it for me... The fact that [my Black friend] couldn’t go someplace with me, besides it being unjust to him, meant that I couldn’t be with my friend.” (22:06 — Landrieu recounting his father's words)

• Personal and Public Are Inseparable: Landrieu emphasizes that “what we do in politics is somehow very personal... It’s how you actually live and how it informs your life.” (23:20)

5. Democratic Politics, Race, and Identity in the South

(24:00–31:41)

• Electoral Realities: Goldberg notes speculation about Landrieu as a potential national candidate, reflecting on the historical reliance on white Southern candidates by Democrats (24:22–25:06).
• No Simple Advantages: Landrieu warns against assuming regional or identity advantages in an unpredictable political era where old party alignments are “upside down” (25:06–26:21).
• Party Dynamics and Disconnection: Landrieu analyzes the Republican and Democratic “wars within,” pointing out that the bigger issue is citizen “disconnection” and the need to “reconnect people to each other” (26:44–28:47).

  “The big question for the country... is how to reconnect people to each other and to get them moving in the same direction, as opposed to thinking that they’re in a zero sum game that’s based on race.” (27:23)

6. Race, Resentment, and the Southern Strategy

(29:35–31:41)

• Purposeful Political Division: Landrieu references Nixon-era strategists like Lee Atwater, Roger Stone, and Paul Manafort, naming the deliberate “Southern strategy” to divide working-class whites from Black Americans by fomenting racial resentment:

  “It was purposeful... they had a Southern strategy which was to divide African Americans and working class whites by race. And the politics of resentment.” (30:14)

• Comparisons with Europe and Northern U.S.: Landrieu contrasts the U.S. adversity to fully confronting racial history with Germany and South Africa, calls for honest reckoning, and brings in non-Southern racism as well (30:14–31:43).

7. A Message for the Future: Diversity as Strength

(31:43–32:31)

• Invitation, Not Condemnation: Landrieu positions his book (and policies) as an invitation for honest reflection, not shaming.
• Welcoming Ethos: He closes with a declaration for New Orleans as a city that embraces diversity and progress:

  “We believe that diversity is a strength and that people are welcome in our city, and we think we’re better for it...” (31:58 — Landrieu)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On historical reckoning:

  “We should never revere what we did, we should remember it so as not to repeat it, and we should purposefully go in a different direction.” (17:10 — Landrieu)

• On confronting white supremacy:

  “It should not be hard for us as a country to simply state that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of history.” (10:14 — Landrieu)

• On the core of the book:

  “It just wasn’t about the monuments. It was about telling people that this thing that is so unique about America is that our strength comes from our diversity and that it’s not a zero sum game and that we all help each other.” (27:39 — Landrieu)

• On personal and political courage:

  “Every time I got scared... I thought about that picture of John Lewis on the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge... He stayed there anyway because he thought something had clicked in him, that the cause was worth taking the pain.” (19:49–20:19 — Landrieu)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:22–06:56 — Decision process and the emotional/political import of monument removals
• 07:15–13:36 — Community reactions, process details, and broader implications of “erasing” or honoring history
• 15:00–18:32 — Beauregard controversy and the nuances of historical memory
• 18:32–23:49 — Family legacy and influence, courage and the civil rights movement in New Orleans
• 24:00–26:21 — National political landscape and shifting party dynamics
• 26:44–28:47 — Disconnection and zero sum politics
• 29:35–31:43 — Race-based political strategies and invitation to reflection
• 31:58–32:31 — Closing statements on diversity, identity, and the meaning of New Orleans’ example

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Conclusion

This episode provides an in-depth, honest, and sometimes raw exploration of how public spaces reflect deeper truths about power, race, and national memory. Mitch Landrieu shares both the practical and philosophical underpinnings of his actions as mayor, elucidates the many layers of Southern identity and political realignment, and challenges listeners to see diversity—and democratic self-examination—not as obstacles, but as sources of strength and renewal.

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Transcript

[A]

An official message from Medicare. I'm saving money on my Medicare prescriptions. Maybe you can save, too. See if you qualify for Medicare's extra help. It pays. To find out, go to ssa.gov extrahelp paid for by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

[B]

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of the Atlantic, and welcome to the Atlantic interview. This week I'm speaking with Mitch Landrieu, the current Democratic mayor of New Orleans. Although I learned in our interview that I'm not supposed to say it that way.

[A]

It's not New Orleans.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's everything other than New Orleans.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I say New Orleans. Most people say New Orleans.

[B]

However you pronounce it, he's the mayor of the city for a short time longer. You may know Landrieu as one of the many names being bandied about as a potential 2020 challenger to President Trump. You may also remember that he was the mayor who took down all those Confederate monuments in his city to a great deal of controversy and some backlash. He gave a moving speech about why he decided to take those statues down. And I recommend you watch it or read it if you haven't. He has a deep personal connection to the city's civil rights history that he'll talk about in our interview. It was a great conversation. And so here's Mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans. Mayor Mitch Landrieu, thank you very much for joining us on the Atlantic interview.

[A]

Great to be with you.

[B]

That's a very professional radio sounding voice that you have there. That was very good. I like that.

[A]

Well, I've been listening to you, so.

[B]

I thought I'd go ahead and shoot it.

[A]

Mimic the great Jeff Goldberg.

[B]

Radio professionalism at its highest.

[A]

Wait, listen to this voice here.

[B]

Exactly. Welcome to the show. You have a new book?

[A]

I do.

[B]

In the Shadow of a White Southerner Confronts History. I want to talk about that. I want to talk about the country, Democratic politics, the president, the future. And I want to do it in about 12 minutes. So hang on. So this book grew out of a national controversy located not only in New Orleans, but you had a big part to play. The conversation about memory and forgetting and forgiveness and how we reconcile. Why don't you start just by talking for a minute about what might have been the toughest moment in your decision to take down four statues in New Orleans that represented or valorized Confederate history?

[A]

Well, that's a great question. Of course, the context is that we were rebuilding a great American city after having been totally destroyed by Katrina. This decision wasn't made in isolation of time or space or other things that were happening in the country. And as we began rebuilding the city of New Orleans in order to. To get it right, we started really doing a deep introspective dive about, well, what are we going to build back? And we had decided, after a bunch of fits and starts, as everybody remember the city being gone after Katrina, that we were going to try to build the city back not the way it was, because the night before Katrina, the city of New Orleans had been a descending city, but the way that the city should have been had we gotten it right the first time, which required the people of the city to do something that very few people ever do, which was to look back at mistakes that we might have made so that we could course correct, maintaining the history that was right and important, and then getting ready for the future. So in that context, we began Preparing for our 300th anniversary, using that as an organizing principle that we could build towards. And of course, I had to ask a lot of people to help me. And as you know, the story, I talked to Wynton Marsalis, who is my friend, one of the great jazz trumpeters, but just a kid from New Orleans, and said, you really ought to think about taking down those Confederate monuments.

[B]

Had you not thought of it until Wynton said something?

[A]

I had not thought about taking them down. I had known that people had tried to over time, but I was involved, as you know, in rebuilding the schools, rebuilding the airport. I mean, just massive infrastructure projects.

[B]

Oh, and the mayor. Those are the important things, immediate things.

[A]

But the issue of race has always been something, as you know, that's been part of my life and how to deal with it. And when Wynton said that to me, I mean, ashamedly, I said, well, why would I do that? And he said, because if you ever thought about what they are and what they mean, who put them up and why they're there. And I said, actually, you know, not much. And he said, would you. Would you think about it for me? And that was really the moment when I began to think really critically about their role in the issue of race and some of the other things that needed to happen in order for the city of New Orleans to prepare itself for its future.

[B]

Put yourself in the shoes of an African American resident of New Orleans walking by a Robert E. Lee statue. What was that like, do you think?

[A]

Well, I know what it's like because I asked and because I did what went and asked me to do. Can you see that from our perspective? And when he. And then he said something else that really exploded my brain. He said, you know, Louis Armstrong left here because of that and didn't want to come back. And of course, when he said that, lots of other things that I had learned that I knew about, that had actually spoken about the great diaspora, all of the people that left the south, us continually sending out our raw material, our intellectual capital, our raw talent to other parts of the world. I said, oh, my goodness, yes. That's part of the attitude that's helped New Orleans become a descending city rather than ascending city, a city that, you know, should entire ethos should be welcoming because our entire history is one of diversity. It's not everybody kind of fending for themselves. And so when Wynton told me that, I then made it my mission to go find out what the right reason is for, who put him up, why they put him up, etc. And of course, I called on our mutual friend Walter Isaacson, who is, in my mind, a really great historian. I talked to Ken Burns, talked to a lot of other people, and of course began to realize that those monuments were not put up to basically remember Robert E. Lee himself, but they were put up as a political message. Well, after the Civil War ended, they.

[B]

Were kind of a brush pack pick.

[A]

They weren't kind of a brush pack pick. They were a go to hell pitch. And so what happened was after, for people who may not know much about this, but the Civil War, as you know, was fought by the Confederacy, which was never a formal governmental entity. It was fought to destroy the United States of America, not to unite it. And it was fought for the cause of slavery. And I thought that it was really important as we prepared ourselves, New Orleans, for our 300th anniversary, so somebody in power, in official government position would articulate for the historical record that we now recognize that it was meant to destroy the country and it was fought for the cause of slavery, which was the worst thing that clearly that we've done in this country and that we ought not be having people on pedestals that we revere for a cause that made people like Wynton Marsalis feel like they were not welcome. And not only because it was unjust and made him uncomfortable, because we were worse for it. And so that's when I decided, you know, I really want to talk to the people of New Orleans about it. And then, of course, you know, we got into the fight that we're in right now.

[B]

Talk about the reaction of two separate groups of white people to your decision. The first Group are white residents of New Orleans. And by the way, you always say New Orleans. And I suppose that's the right way because you're the mayor.

[A]

It's really New Orleans, but I think I'm out of. It's not New Orleans. It's everything other than New Orleans.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I say New Orleans. Most people say New Orleans.

[B]

Okay, I'm gonna try night. I'm just gonna say your city. Cause I don't wanna.

[A]

Either way is.

[B]

I don't wanna mess around, but either way is fine. I guess you get to decide. You are the mayor.

[A]

I guess in a little while. Whatever I do is mayoral.

[B]

Mayoral, right, Mayoral. I'm gonna say mayoral. So the first group are the whites who live in your city, and the second group are the whites of the state and of the South. The reason I ask this is because I always think of your city as a kind of carve out from the South. You know, it's such an. It's one of the most unusual cities in America. One of the most unusual in the word polyglot in a way that very few American cities are. My assumption, which is, I guess mistaken, is that the whites who live in New Orleans are axiomatically more cosmopolitan and grapple with these issues. But I don't think you experience that level of cosmopolitanism.

[A]

First of all, let me say this. All whites don't think alike. All African Americans don't think alike.

[B]

Stipulated.

[A]

And so it's important to know here, as well as people of religious faiths, don't think alike, like you would normally think. This thing, race, by the way, cuts across a lot of that, cuts across religion in a meaningful way. So if, for example, we were going to have a war about race or religion, it might be interesting to say, well, which one of those things that you care about the most would win out? And what side you're on? Which is a whole nother discussion for another day. But it is true, as a general proposition, that the people of New Orleans agree that these statues could come down by 55 to 60% margin. Not all of the whites in New Orleans were against taking these down. Maybe about a quarter of them were, but the other group of them were ready to go. And if war not at that time, now feel like it was the right thing to do. So the people of New Orleans, as a majority, if you were counting votes, I always felt comfortable that this not only was the right thing to do for the city, but it is what the majority of the people wanted. As you may recall, we had four public Hearings through three different sets of organizational groups, two historic commissions, and then one city council. Then after that, this matter was litigated in the court. Seven different courts, 13 separate judges. And then of course, the legislature took up the issue and then decided not to take any action on it. And then the federal government was asked to opine about it and nobody said anything. So we went through local, state and federal legislative, executive and judicial. So I don't know that there's been a much more democratic process. Now. It is also true that people in the state of Louisiana writ large, which of course don't control the land. And the people in the city and the state is majority white. It's about 70% white. 30% African American was the exact opposite. They were 2/3 against 1 third for. But they weren't the only ones that were opining about this, which made this a very interesting experience. People from across the country came as though the Confederacy was still alive and they somehow were protectors of it. And that these monuments, alt right officer or whatever. Well, not only alt right, yes, the alt right came, but not just alt right types. Other individuals that for some reason felt like these statues took on a mythical status that no other statute in the world took on. And they should not be moved, shall not be moved, and should always be revered. Which was kind of weird because there's no other physical piece of property that gets that honor that we really talked about. So it was a very interesting experience and it was a very emotional experience for some people. But I just. This is just what I feel now. It should not be hard for us as a country to simply state that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of history. It was fought to destroy the country and it was fought to maintain the institution of slavery, which is the worst thing that's happened in this country in a very long time. If we can't speak to that, then what the book really speaks to is a need to have racial reconciliation to get through race. The statues are just one of the many, many different ways that people told African American people that you weren't worthy. And of course we got into this big historical fight about their history. Well, putting them up with history. But guess what? So is taking them down.

[B]

So why do most whites in Louisiana not agree with this? They just haven't reconciled themselves to the wrongness of the Confederacy.

[A]

No, actually it's a lot more complicated than that. There are some. There are some who have not reconciled themselves to that and still think that the Confederacy was on the right side of history, not the Wrong side of history. And the Civil War was about economics.

[B]

Does that blow your mind?

[A]

Yeah, it's curious, but, you know, it blows my mind that people don't think, you know, climate change is real.

[B]

That makes you a Democrat.

[A]

So no. A lot of Republicans believe that too. So I don't really think this is a party thing. But there were some other people that were against taking the monuments down for professedly non racial, pro Confederate reasons. If you take them at their word, which is, look, they're part of the landscape, they're really nice, they've been there for a long time, they don't really hurt me or hurt anybody. And I don't know anybody who's offended by them, which could all be true, but it's kind of weird that they don't know anybody that's offended by him in a City that's 60% African American.

[B]

What about the argument about erasure of history?

[A]

It is a point that they make. And the answer is so obvious. I would say this. There are 3,000 of those somewhere on the land in the United States of America. And they take up the most prominent places of reverence that represent only four years of what in New Orleans is a 300 year history. And there is no other remembrance of or reverence of anything else relating to the war.

[B]

The Union is not recognized.

[A]

The Union is not recognized at all. And not only that, the Civil War, as important as it was to the country, is not like the only thing that happened in New Orleans in the last 300 years. And it is in the most prominent circle. So for people in Washington D.C. who are listening to this, this isn't like some far off corner. This is like where Lincoln is in New Orleans. And interestingly enough, on that note, we don't have a monument to King George on the Washington Mall. They lost that war, you remember, and we don't have them in places of reverence. And the thing that's really hard for me to get is to reconcile these individuals that are so pro Confederacy. They're the ones that are always wearing the American flag hats first along with the rest of us, but reminding us that they're patriots, to which it's curious to us saying, well, actually the Confederacy fought to destroy the country, not to preserve it. And so how do you reconcile those two things? And of course they have a hard time doing that. And I just think one of the real challenges we have in this country and this notion is being challenged right now in our republic that we thought was an unassailable thing, was that diversity is a strength, not a weakness. And now there is a pretty strong tide in this country saying, no, actually, we're better separate. And by the way, we're still better than you. And guess what? If you don't look like me, you can't come in. And I'm gonna assume that because you're from a certain country or your sexual orientation is a certain way or you look a certain way, that you're either a criminal or a terrorist or et cetera. And I don't think you can let that stand without challenging that in the marketplace of ideas.

[B]

Let me come back to one aspect of the statue controversy that I found so interesting. Three of them were fairly obvious statues. One was a little less so. The Beauregard statue, because PGT Beauregard, after the Civil War, kind of moderated himself, if I'm not mistaken, and became more about let's reconcile the races. I mean, it wasn't progressive by our standards, of what progressive means. But did you have any second thought about that?

[A]

I did. I mean, of all the three, I was a little conflicted about that one.

[B]

Tell me about it.

[A]

Well, because actually, the argument against Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee are fairly simple, which is they weren't even from New Orleans, and they didn't have a connection to him. Lincoln actually spent more time in New Orleans than Robert E. Lee, and we don't have a statute of the President Lincoln. So you could make the argument about honoring somebody for their connectivity to the city, et cetera, et cetera. But essentially, when you drive down technically on why they were put up, what you recognize is the statues really were not put up to honor the men. It was put up for the cause of sending a message to African Americans, and they were erected because they were military figures. Now, some people say, oh, a slippery slope argument. I say, yeah, we can figure that out. So, for example, I think somebody could make a good argument that you shouldn't change the name of Washington and Lee University simply because sometime in Lee's life he was the head of the Confederacy because he found that university for a good reason, for a good purpose. And he's been remembered for his commitment to education. He's not being remembered and revered for splitting the nation in half and preserving slavery. And I think that we can distinguish between those two things, which, of course, leads you into the much more complicated discussions about how we adorn ourselves with street names and get into difficult things. And so on that issue, I could not, at the end of the day, intellectually distinguish between the actions that PGT. Beauregard took, Lee took, and Jefferson Davis took in the cause of the Confederacy and what that sent. And by the way, you would put.

[B]

Up a statue of Beauregard to honor his work after the Civil War?

[A]

Well, not necessarily. I wouldn't do it, but I wouldn't. The argument could be made someone else do it. The argument could be made about that, particularly. I don't know that I would agree to it. And by the way, just in terms of context, when historians say we got rid of history, I accuse them of historic malfeasance, a lie by omission. Like, if your job was really to remember our history, why don't you remember all of our history? Why did you forget? It's like taking a test and answering one question and not the other 99 and say, will you get an A? Like, well, no, you forgot everybody else that had something to do with it. And by the way, to make this really real, until next month or maybe next week, there will be no monuments in the United States of America to all of the African Americans who were lynched. Bryan Stevenson in Birmingham is about to correct that historical error. Until last year, there was no monument to African Americans until the African American Museum, you know, opened on the Mall, which is an exquisite piece of work. And in that particular museum, there is a block on which lots of human beings were sold into slavery. And before that museum was open, the only thing that block was remembered for is the place where two guys who ran for white guys ran for president stand and gave a speech. So same piece of material, completely different story. One about the two guys that ran for president told for entirety of our history and nobody told the rest of it, which is much more compelling for the country so that we can begin to understand and reconcile. And so to my great historical friends who accuse me of trying to change history, my question to them is, where have you been on all of the other things that we need to talk about in this country that actually reflect something that we need to understand, that we should never revere what we did, we should remember it so as not to repeat it, and we should purposefully go in a different direction.

[B]

I'm not insulting you by saying that on the one hand, you were brave to do what you did, but on the other hand, you're not nearly as brave as your father was when he was mayor and did some pretty radical things in New Orleans. Is that fair?

[A]

It's absolutely fair.

[B]

I don't want to insult you.

[A]

No, no, no, no. It's not an insult at All Moonlander.

[B]

Is a seminal figure in civil rights.

[A]

I mean, for people who don't know, when he was 29 years old and the father of four baby babies with me in utero, he opposed the then segregationist governor and was one of two legislators to vote against the packages of segregation. On top of that, he and a bunch of other people together did an unbelievably courageous thing. And so I don't put myself anywhere in that category or the category of a John Lewis or anybody else. That, in my mind, risked a lot more than I did. And so while I'm. While I'm appreciative that people recognize it, I certainly haven't done anything by myself or anything harder than other people and what they've done.

[B]

Would you have done this without the example of your father?

[A]

Probably not. You know, we all kind of learn from the people who are our mentors, but it wasn't just him. Dr. Norman Francis, who was the head of Xavier University and a Presidential Medal of Freedom Award winner, Lolis Eli. I mean, there were a lot of people. John Lewis, for example. Every time I got scared, this is true, because you get scared sometimes and you get weak. Every time I thought, this isn't worth it, I thought about that picture of John Lewis on the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. And when people ask me what courage kind of is to me, I said, go look at that picture. He was about to get whooped, and he knew he was going to get hit. He knew it and he knew it was going to hurt. Right. And he stayed there anyway because he thought something had clicked in him, that the cause was worth taking. The pain. When you see stuff like that, truly, what. But what this is doesn't really fall in the same category of courageous as that.

[B]

Why was Moonlander so different than the average white politician of Louisiana 30, 40, 50 years ago?

[A]

Because his best friend was African American.

[B]

That's it?

[A]

I think so.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Not religion.

[A]

Two reasons. No, that's not completely accurate. When he went to. He was a poor kid. He got to Jesuit High School, and he was trained in the way the Jesuits think. But when he went to Loyola Law School at the time. So this is in 1950. So he got out of 48. So between 48 and, like, 56, when he went to college and law school during that period of time, of course, the civil rights movement was beginning to percolate. The Jesuits were very socially active, and there was a priest there named Father Toomey, and they talked a lot about justice and racial inclusion. And as, of course, you know, when the schools were getting integrated, the archbishop at the time, you know, they were going through a lot of stuff. And so he was trained in this way of thinking about caring for other people and seeing people for who they are, not necessarily what they look like. And his best friend turned out to be African American, who was better looking than him, smarter than him, ran faster than him, did everything better than him. And so he was trying to balance off what his white friends who were on his baseball team would say about African Americans and his affirmation of actually what the black people.

[B]

Why did he become friends with a black person at a time when that didn't happen?

[A]

That's a great. That's an interesting question. And, you know, how he was open to that is really kind of a miraculous thing. I think it was part of his faith. But he said, I asked my daddy about this, you know, because people always in history want to go, oh, your dad was so courageous. He was a hero. And, you know, he was. He fought for justice. And I said, dad, this is what people say about you. And he said, well, I accept that. And some of that's true. He said, however, he said, to be completely honest with you, he said, I have to work through my bigotry. And he said, I didn't really just do it for Norman, who was his best friend, who was African American. He said, I did it for me. And I said, what does that mean? And he said, well, Naaman was my best friend. He was my friend. I loved being with my friend. I learned things from him. I didn't see him as black. He was my friend. And the fact that he couldn't go someplace with me, besides it being unjust to him, meant that I couldn't be with my friend, and I couldn't learn from him. And so Norman and Blanche, his wife, had a bunch of kids, and the Landrys, there are nine of us in my family, and he's got six kids. I think we all grew up together. And the story of this is a true story. When my father became Councilmember at large, somebody came to his office one day, the head of the recreation department, and called him and said, Mr. Councilman at large, we had a terrible problem. You know, we tried to start the baseball league, and this African American family showed up and tried to sign up. And of course, we told them they couldn't because we don't let blacks play. And he said, well, what was his name? And they said, norman Francis. And he said, oh, my goodness. And they fired that guy that day. And they went and got Norman, went to Norman's house. And Norman said, moon, you can't talk to Blanche right now because she's too upset. And it wouldn't be a productive conversation. He said, norman, come on, I'll get you in. He goes, no, I'm not worried about me and my kids. I'm worried about everybody. So it was that kind of personal influence. It wasn't about these big, thoughtful issues. It was about kids my father knew who were like his children, who were being treated differently, who, by the way, went on to win the MVP in baseball and in everything that they did in great scholars and great leaders. And so what we do in politics is somehow very personal in terms of how we produce policy. And it's not just ideology. It's how you actually live and how it informs your life.

[B]

Let me just turn in a few minutes. We have left to. Well, it's a separate question about whiteness, which is to say this. You're pretty young, fairly young.

[A]

My kids don't think so.

[B]

Well, but your parents do.

[A]

That's true.

[B]

The politician. You're ending up two successful terms as mayor. People talk about you all the time as a candidate, and one of the reasons they talk to you about a candidate for the presidency is a. Because they talk about everybody right now, because the Democrats are trying to figure out what's going on.

[A]

Well, Republicans and Democrats are desperate, right?

[B]

But there's another thing, which is that we have a model over the last 40 years or so of what makes a successful Democratic Democratic presidential candidate. Two of the three Democrats to win it all are white Southern Christian males. And so people are saying, oh, well, Mitch Lander, he's from the south, and so that makes it easier for the Democrats. But your discourse is substantially different than, let's call it, the dominant white political discourse of the south at the moment. So does being from that place give you any advantage politically?

[A]

No, I don't think so. I think the world's changing a lot. And I think, you know, first of all, I do think both the Democratic and the Republican Party on the national level, to be completely distinguished from people who govern that are Republican or Democrat day to day, who are not ideologically bent, are all just scratching their heads about where we are at the moment. And we have a person who is an unpredictable candidate, and he's an unpredictable president, and we're living in chaos. So everybody's going, what the heck? And where are we going? And what are we doing? And so there are lots of people that are talking about lots of people. So it's not surprising that your name comes up every now and then. But we always make a mistake of looking to the past to try to predict what's going to happen in the future. And that's turned out to be a fool's errand. So this kind of parlor game that everybody plays about guessing what's going to happen and who's positioned where, to me doesn't really mean very much because as you know, you've a intellectual of some substance in history, something dramatic is going to happen that you know of, whether it's something going on in Iran or North Korea or a terrorist attack in the United States. And it's gonna upend where we are at the moment. It's just gonna upend that and everything we think today will not be so in a year and a half or two years. So all of that stuff is just something that you can't pay attention to.

[B]

Step out of the horse race issue and go to the sort of the general issue. What would it take for the Democrats to convince a large number of white southern males that this is their part, this could be their party again?

[A]

Well, again, is it something worth doing? I'm not trying to pump, but I'll answer this question like somebody that knows a lot about political science and political philosophy.

[B]

Let's make believe that you're a politician.

[A]

Yeah, let's make believe.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Because I wanna answer this question across parties. My observation of the Republican Party is that it's at war with itself, that Trump is sui generis. He's rewriting what it means to be Republican. It used to be if you were Republican, you have free trade now. No, no, no, no, we're not doing that anymore. It used to mean other things that he's pushing himself in and right now he's co opted what used to be Democratic votes by going to white working class people that used to be union voters, etc. So the whole thing is upside down. The same thing of course is happening on the national Democratic side where you have an Elizabeth Warren and a Bernie Sanders fighting over whether, you know, we're going to pull the party to the left and then the blue dog Democrats that are basically non existent anymore saying no, no, no, don't do that, that's a bridge too far. And while we're all yelling up here, there are people in America who are hurting, who feel left out. Some of them are African Americans that justifiably feel put upon by police community relations. Some of them are guys that are humping in the coal mines and in the oil fields, like somebody left me behind. And this free trade stuff sounds great, but it's costing me my job. And I hear about climate change and I think might be a problem 50 years from now, but next week I'm not going to have a job who's speaking to me. And so, as you think about the country in the last couple of years, with all of the different movements, some from the far right, some from the far left, the bigger thing to hear is that people feel disconnected. And I think the big question for the country, putting party aside, is how to reconnect people to each other and to get them moving in the same direction, as opposed to thinking that they're in a zero sum game that's based on race. And this is really one of the things I wanted to talk about in the book. It just wasn't about the monuments. It was about telling people that this thing that is so unique about America is that our strength comes from our diversity and that it's not a zero sum game and that we all help each other. This notion that somehow when we're in pain and agony and we're hurting, that we can turn on each other based on race, creed, color, religion has taken the world in a very, very different. In a difficult place.

[B]

All this is great. But how do you get the white guy who lives in Metairie just down the road from you, to change that?

[A]

Well, for a couple reasons, you go see them, you talk to them, you listen to them, and you constructively come up with a better way that doesn't cost nearly as much as what President Trump's gonna ask the country to pay for this chaos. That's essentially how you do it. It's a simple formula, but very complicated, actually, to get done. And of course, you know that it takes a long time. It could very well take seven years, eight years, it could take 10. I mean, you know, this. We kind of swing back and forth. I guess it is a theory of science that for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. That's not necessarily a great political strategy if you're gonna govern the country well.

[B]

Well, I have the majority of whites of, let's just say, Louisiana, but probably across the south, not reconcile themselves to certain unpleasant aspects of Southern history. Right. And also why a lot of whites in the south have moved from their natural party, the Democratic Party, to the Republican Party, even though. And again, this is just analytical. I'm not putting my thumb on the scale. Even though one could argue that a lot of their interests align better with the Democratic Party. I think I'm wondering if they're the same two sides of the same question because it goes back to race and resentment and identity and a whole bunch of really complicated stuff.

[A]

Well, it was purposeful. It was purposeful. You may remember after President Nixon was around that there were young guys who worked for him. One of his name was Paul Manafort.

[B]

One other was Roger Stone.

[A]

The other was Roger Stone. They were there when they were young kids. And of course, Lee Atwater, who's apologized for this before he passed, basically said they had a Southern strategy which was to divide African Americans and working class whites by race. And the politics of resentment. Of course, it's always been clear that the economic interest of people in the socioeconomic system are more the same than race. But race evidently is harder for us to get through. Now, why it's hard for us to get through and why we haven't confronted our past, let's say, purposefully, the way Germany has or the way even though they haven't necessarily succeeded as well in South Africa, speaks to the power of race in Louisiana. President Obama, for example, who was decidedly less liberal than John Kerry on any political spectrum, you can't compare them because they didn't run against president for each other. But Kerry ran in Louisiana years before against President Bush, but he bested President Obama's numbers in the south by 10 points. Now, what else could be the justification for that? I mean, there's no use hiding from that issue. And so the book goes back to this issue. It's not a condemnation. It really is an invitation to people in the south, and by the way, people in the north who have their racism.

[B]

We haven't talked about Northern racism, but.

[A]

I'm not trying to put that aside. I'm just a Southerner, so I'm not preaching. But it is a chance for them to think about this and to ask themselves whether or not it's possible that we would have been better off by including people and welcoming them in and benefiting from the gifts that they had rather than sending them all out and how much better we would be. And by the way, if y' all are going to wait on that, the people of New Orleans want to declare here and now for the whole world to hear in our 300th anniversary that we believe that diversity is a strength and that people are welcome in our city, and we think we're better for it, and we think we've produced something that is a gift to the United States of America in return for everything that they gave us after Katrina. We're very thankful for it. And taking down the monuments was just one very small step along, as we say, bending the moral arc of the universe towards justice.

[B]

Mitch Landrieu, thank you very much for joining.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

My thanks again to Mitch Landrieu. His new book is called in the Shadow of a White Southerner Confronts History. He leaves office in a few weeks and will be watching Egret what he does next. Thank you all for listening to the Atlantic interview. This episode was produced by Kevin Townsend with productions of work from Matt Thompson, Kim Lau and Kathryn Wells. If you like the show, give us a rating. And by that I mean a positive rating. Thank you very much for listening. See you next week.