New Orleans was America’s largest slave market: a port where hundreds ofthousands of souls were brought, sold and shipped up the Mississippi River tolives of forced labor of misery of rape, of torturexxi .America was the place where nearly 4000 xxii of our fellow citizens were lynched,540xxiii alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined ‘separate but equal’xxiv ;where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp. xxvSo when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well whatI just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.And it immediately begs the questions; why there are no slave ship monuments,no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slaveblocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice,the shame... all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans.So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they areeerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission.

So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they areeerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission.

traces the city's development from its founding by the French in 1718 through its period of Spanish control, then briefly back to French rule before being acquired by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

New Orleans is world-renowned for its distinctive music, Creole cuisine, unique dialects, and its annual celebrations and festivals, most notably Mardi Gras.