In the Shadow of Statues, A White Southerner Confronts History, by Mitch Landrieu; 2018; $25.00; 227 pages; Viking, New York, NY; 978-0-525-55944-3; checked out from Multnomah County Library, Midland; 7/17/2020-7/21/2020
You might think Mitch Landrieu is running for higher office with this treatise. He doesn't get to the part about the statues until almost the end. He lays the groundwork for while he was willing to fight this battle. He was the mayor of New Orleans when the battle. I only had a few quibbles with his reasoning, one he equates the Holocaust with slavery and I agree with this reasoning. I felt that he ignored the United States own record of genocide when they wiped out millions of indigenous people. He also spoke of the benefits received by WWII in using the GI Bill, without addressing the difficulties that African-American veterans had using the problem.
One of the statutes that was removed was General Robert E. Lee. His only connection to New Orleans was that he had visited for just one day. I enjoyed the read and his account of growing up progressive in a time that was not looked on favorably in the southern states.
10/10
