Racial healing in New Orleans

Trymaine Lee: One of the oldest black neighborhoods in America is rooted in New Orleans. It’s a Tremé neighborhood, home of jazz, Creole cooking, and Mardi Gras Indians. The neighborhood was founded in the early 1800’s and, for generations, it was a prosperous community. At the heart of it all was Claiborne Avenue. Black businesses line the streets, framed by the old oak trees that provided cover from the hot Louisiana sun.

But in the 1960’s, everything here changed in post-World War II America as urban planners looked for ways to expand cities into the suburbs. Many so-called urban renewal projects cut the neighborhoods of color like Tremé.

In 1966, the Interstate 10 Highway went up, decimating the community. But recently, there’s been an effort to right the wrongs of the past. Since 2017, community members have the medium workshops known as charettes, coming up with new ways to help the neighborhood recover from the old decision to build I-10 Highway here.

And now, thanks to the Biden administration’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill, there’s money to act. But figuring out what to do with Tremé is not an easy decision. What’s the right path for one member of the community can sit on the other side of what the neighbors might want.

Lee: Why do you think this interstate should be torn down?

Amy Stelly: Because it doesn’t do any good for the community. If you look around, you can see the quality of life that these people have.

Lee: Activist Amy Stelly is pitching a plan that could include tearing down the freeway and redeveloping the neighborhood.

Stelly: We have a great network of boulevards that take you seamlessly from one part of the city to another, so there’s no need for this.

Lee: But not everyone agrees.

Sue Press: It won’t be us with businesses on Claiborne Street. It won’t be us in these neighborhoods here off of Claiborne Street. It would not be us.

Lee: This is Sue Press. Her grandmother was born in Tremé in 1890, and much of her family still lives here. She worries if the freeway is torn down, families like hers will be pushed out of the already gentrifying neighborhood. She wants to see money going to beautifying and strengthening the community as is.

Press: Make me believe before I close my eyes that we, as people, can have something. We can hold onto something. You know, this make me believe that people will matter more than revenue.

Lee: Regardless of what happens next, what’s clear is this. This community was hurt, and now the community needs to be in the driver’s seat of determining what it takes to heal.

I’m Trymaine Lee, and this is Into America. This week as we celebrate the birth and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., MSNBC is holding a town hall in New Orleans on racial equity and healing, sponsored by the Kellogg Foundation. It’s hosted by Joy Reid, Chris Hayes, and myself. I wanted to share an extended conversation on one of the many topics we’ll be digging into, the Claiborne Avenue Expressway and the future of Tremé.

Reynard Sanders is a lifelong New Orleanian, and he’s the Executive Director of the Claiborne History Project, a project to document the stories of the Tremé Neighborhood. While proposals for the Claiborne Avenue Expressway have included everything from tearing down the freeway completely to infrastructure improvements like new lighting, to investing federal grant money into the community, Reynard says the most important thing is that the people on the ground have a say in what happens next. We recently sat down at the New Orleans Jazz Museum to talk about the history of this community and the fight to save it.

Reynard Sanders: Well, I grew up in the Gentilly 7th Ward and have basically spent my whole life in that area, always downtown, you know, went to schools and everything, you know, still live down in the Gentilly area.

Lee: And the city has certainly changed when you were a kid, but we’re seeing a lot of change in this city.

Sanders: Oh, yeah. I’ve been around a minute. Like kids say, I'm dated, right? But there has been a lot of change, particularly post-Katrina. We’ve seen a lot of things with the effort right after Katrina to keep poor black and brown, poor people out. And that had an effect. So, you know, we lost population, changing shifts in neighborhoods. People that are living in neighborhoods now have been deprived to country.

Lee: Whether we think about these forces of gentrification, and segregation, and economic ups and downs, black folks bearing the brunt of those forces, that’s nothing new in the city. I’ve been hearing these stories about what the interstate did, especially to Tremé in the 7th Ward in terms of dividing a community, separating the community from itself. And I wonder if you could talk to us about the impact of the interstate, then we’ll go back and talk about like the history and everything. But first, what was the impact of the Interstate?

Sanders: North Claiborne was the main artery. Everything was there. All the services were there. You know, it was like the town square for the African-American community dating back to, you know, the 1800’s. And we had a very large free people of color population in addition to an enslaved population.

So Claiborne Avenue was the center for everything in terms of entertainment, doctors’ offices, music, drugstore, everything, groceries. Everything, you name it, happened on North Claiborne and, cultural events in addition to a large number of African-American businesses. So at some point before the interstate, we had about 118 businesses, largely African-American that was located on North Claiborne and right off of North Claiborne.

And quite naturally, that dollar turned over in the community, so it was really a financial hub, too. So in comes the interstate unbeknownst to everybody in the African-American community. The Interstate in New Orleans goes down the median. We call the neutral ground, right? But the ramps, they took out houses.

You know, around 1966, you went to Claiborne Avenue, they would just tenet up, take down the oak trees, and completely killed that community from that construction. So it was really devastating.

Lee: You say unbeknownst to black people. Were black folks just unaware this was happening? Was it brushed under the rug? Was it kind of a covert kind of project?

Sanders: Well, there were no announcements, no public hearings, no town halls, okay? So even though federal law said it was supposed to have some communication, that just did not happen. You know, we got to remember this is New Orleans. This is America. There’s no need to communicate with the black community. They are disenfranchised, and they don’t matter anyway, you know. So there was no communication as it relates to that.

So for most people, like myself, on the way to school, they had these bulldozers, so there was no conversation about it. Simultaneously, there was a riverfront expressway that was also planned. And like many people, you know, most people believe that it was supposed to go along the river and that Claiborne by black people.

But in reality is, you know, plans were drawn up around certainly as 1956 of this bypass that was going to come off before it got down to Claiborne and was going to go along the riverfront. So there wouldn’t have been no Riverwalk, no Hilton Hotel. And right on the other side of Cafe Du Monde, you would’ve saw the interstate and then come back around.

That community was alerted by two young attorneys who begins complaining about it. And they began to get preservationists involved in people and the French Quarters, mostly white. They were two white lawyers, young attorneys. And they begin to complain into the federal government, and they begin to fight it. And they were losing the fight until the richest man in New Orleans, Edgar Stern, jumped in the fight, and they were able to lobby in Washington.

Lee: So in all of this, what role did race play?

Sanders: Oh, well, I believe it plays a big role, you know, in terms of the way it was done. And ultimately, they backed off of the French quarters by a rule that stated that we can build a highway next to historic property, and that’s how they finally got them to recognize that rule, thanks to those efforts, you know, down there, whereas on Claiborne, they didn’t enforce that rule even though we had historic places that were just as important as the French Quarter, but is the race issue.

You know, French Quarter is mostly white. You know, this is an African-American community, you know, back then, probably 99 percent, you know, African-American schools with a history and institutions that haven’t been existed, you know, since the 1700’s. But, you know, once again, it’s the disregard and, you know, just the disregard, you know, just like they did, you know, in the rest of the country.

Lee: How quickly after the project started in the completion of the interstate did we start to see a decline in Tremé? You talked about 100 plus black businesses, and black schools, and the social spaces that we occupied. How quickly did we see things decline?

Sanders: Like overnight. Okay, so the first thing you took out there, space. It’s very wide neutral ground, you know, median, right? Very wide. So you took that up.

The other thing, you begin to tear down all of the building where those ramps are. So we have like three ramps in between a 22 block area, which is the main area where it comes out North Claiborne. Those businesses were gone, right? The construction came, so therefore access to those businesses became difficult for people. So there was an immediate impact, okay?

And when the interstate opened in 1969, the businesses that were left, there was not the traffic. It did not have the pedestrian or even the vehicular traffic, and people go in there to do businesses as they have been done in for over 100 plus years. So there was the immediate impact, and then long lasting, long lasting, you know, probably down to about 50 businesses at this point, if that many within that 22 block area.

Lee: Stick with us. We’ll be right back.

Lee: We’re back with Reynard Sanders, the Executive Director of the Claiborne History Project. Sometimes, obviously, we’re talking about New Orleans here, but all across America these kinds of injustices have happened and disrupted the lives of black folks, folks uprooted lead from community and family and economic resources, but we’ve also fought along the way. And I wonder how early we began seeing people in New Orleans pushing back against this project while it was happening, but also certainly after.

Sanders: The Interstate opened in 1969, and a community organization called (Inaudible) Educational and Cultural Center had just been founded right around the time that the Interstate opened. And I was working for that organization in the early 70’s, and we begin to complain on the devastation that this monstrosity had done to our community. You know, very recent, the bridge wasn’t 3-years-old or 4-years-old. And we began to put political pressure on the city.

And they finally gave us a grant to bring economic vitality back, and we formed a group with an engineer, a local African-American architect called Claiborne Avenue Design Team, and we did a two-year study from 1974 to 1976. And I was a part of that study where we knocked on doors to talk to people about it and get a consensus from the community. We did, we were doing the work that they didn’t do before in terms of communicating with that community.

We released that study in 1976, and our recommendations were to beautify, maintain it, take the ramps out, and bring back to those businesses, and then have business and programs to try to get it back to the vitality that it was. Of course, that effort was put on the shelf, you know? And --

Lee: What do you say, of course?

Sanders: Well, because usually, you know, they say, well, okay, we’ll do something for the African-American. We’ll try to right the wrong, and they’ll start an effort. And it never goes anywhere. You know, it’s like, you know, we’re placating so to speak, you know, which usually happens in the African-American community. You know, we find the same thing with voter registration, voter suppression, and those kinds of things.

So anyway, you know, years have gone by, and then right after Katrina, we began this community plan and where each community came together under and organized effort by the city. And it was from those planning meetings that some people suggested taking down the interstate.

Now, some of those people that were making those recommendations didn’t look like myself and you, right? So they had other ideas, you know?

The Claiborne Avenue was a very, very lucrative spot, but it’s also very open for development. And that is very close to the French Quarters. This is like five blocks from the French Quarters. You know, the French Quarter was the original part of the city and, you know, this Tremé community is adjacent to that, right? So it really is a bonanza, so to speak, for developers to come in and, you know, now we would have a lot of businesses, a lot of money in that community that lived and that would once again be cut out.

And eventually, the city came and they did a study on whether to take it down or leave it up. And they came up with some recommendations. And it is formed into a non-for-profit to try to deal with it in terms of developing it and bringing it back. There’s been a lot of studies. It have come mostly from the University of New Orleans, mostly economic kinds of things.

But that is more than economic engine. You know, that is a sacred ground. That is the town square for the genesis of New Orleans culture. Everything that we are famous for, everything that the city makes money for and being the economic engine for the state of Louisiana began on North Claiborne Avenue with the advent of jazz, and the culture, and the Mardi Gras Indians, and all of those things that makes this one of the most unique cities, not only in America, but across the world.

Lee: So certainly, it’s about more than just money, right? We can qualify the many ways in which it impacted the black community and everything that we love about New Orleans and that sacred ground. But is there a way for us to quantify the loss --

Sanders: No --

Lee: -- that the Interstate created on the black community?

Sanders: -- no, you can’t. I don’t think you can do that.

Lee: Because it was too big or it was --

Sanders: It’s too big, and I think there’s too many variables. You can make some projections. Let’s think about this now.

So we had 118 businesses, mostly African-Americans, that operated there for years, right? So how do you measure that, you know, 50, 60 years later? You know, what the potential growth would be. I know they got some economists that would say, well, you know, you could do this and you could do that, and you can do this and you can do that. But I don’t think that you can ever right that wrong totally because you took it, you know?

So even if you do a whole lot of money out of it, right, you never can. That’s still 50 plus years are gone, you know? It’s really, in my mind, unquantifiable. But there’s a lot that can be done. And, you know, there are groups in the community that are working towards doing that.

But for my perspective and the Claiborne Avenue History Project’s perspective, it has to be done in the same spirit of what it was. And we have to recognize it that the Tremé community is just as important as the French Quarters. And that these great musicians, great artists, great poets, sculptures that all existed and contributed to make New Orleans what it is for 100 plus years, most of which was pre-slavery, right, really made these great contributions.

So, you know, as I say, it’s sacred ground, you know? And as we talk about St. Louis Cathedral and Cabildo, and all of which are important, right, we need to be talking about those houses in that community and the schools in that community. So it is extremely important that we do what we can to heal it in terms of racial healing. The people in our community need to be able to reap the benefits and have the same pleasures and everything like every other historic community that is so important to America.

Lee: When you talk about this idea of operating in a spirit and you talked about this idea of racial healing, and I wonder when we think back to the spirit in which this Interstate was rammed down the throats of the black community, and it was a racial divide there, and I wonder now this idea of healing, are we also seeing a racial divide where white folks want it torn down for whatever reason and black folks are trying to say, you know what, maybe there’s another way to use that money. Are we seeing a divide in terms of like what demand?

Sanders: Well, there is people in the community that want it to stay up. There's people in the community that want to take it down. That’s not a race issue, right? We are seeing a lot of gentrification in that community. We were seeing that pride took the train up, but since then it is really accelerated.

So, you know, we have to do things to support the business community, but also, we need to follow the experts in terms of how do we help these people that live there maintain their property with all of the costs going up and, you know, fighting the gentrification issue. How do you keep it that way?

Lee: You know, we’re here to have a conversation about healing and a specific community healing. And I wonder sometimes to think about that idea, and I’m a little skeptical because America does what America does. And we’ve experienced living this way in America where we always get the brunt of all of --

Sanders: Everything.

Lee: -- everything in America, right?

Sanders: At the bottom.

Lee: At the bottom, right?

Sanders: Yeah.

Lee: It’s always (inaudible) even though we fight and struggle back. But I wonder if you think there is a way to do something today, 2023, to heal around what happened in Tremé and around that interstate because we can’t quantify the losses of losses, the story hadn’t be fully told yet. Folks will even know their deep connection to this amazing place that birthed so much. With all of that, how can we heal? Is it even possible?

Sanders: Well, you know, I think that there’s some things that we could do to stop the hemorrhaging. But I think we need to, you know, use this as an example of disenfranchisement. And this is something that America needs to confront, right?

So right now, we’re talking about this community or this interstate in this city or that city. But what about every day the communities of color, black and brown, poor communities are confronted with this disenfranchisement? We’re going to not want you to vote. You know, we’re going to keep giving you terrible schools. We’re going to take the democracy out of schools. I think that’s the larger kind of question per se, right?

So if you heal this and you do everything that you can to heal it, do as much as we can, right? We got to stop doing it. You know, we’ve got to, in America, face this issue about race and about full citizenship. And the fact of the matter is that we still have a large amount of people in this country that don’t want people to have full citizenship, that don’t want people to have an equal wage, that don’t want women to have an equal wage, that don't want women to control their bodies, right?

So we could do some things, but why can’t we at once say, well, let’s not just do this, but let’s stop this from happening, you know, because right now we’re treating symptoms. But what about if, in America, we finally decided to live up to the constitution. When, in America, if we finally live this habit that we were not going to have any bad schools, that we would do criminal justice reform and not continually just kill these people. And if you’re black, brown, and poor, you’re just in deep --

Lee: Yeah.

Sanders: -- mess, you know? Why can’t we move that rather than responding to things that have happened 50 years ago?

You know, if smoking causes cancer, let’s not improve the chemotherapy. Let’s stop the smoking, right? You know, when it comes to me, that’s what you do, right? But let’s straighten this out. Let’s do the things in this country and give people opportunity, and hope, and fairness that they just as deserve as citizens.

Lee: So we’re talking about the interstate in New Orleans coming through Tremé, this historic black community. But New Orleans and Tremé are not alone experiencing this kind of infrastructure terrorism and racism, right?

Sanders: No.

Lee: How do you think what happened here in New Orleans fits into the broader scheme of what’s happening all across the country with these interstates and infrastructure, in particular?

Sanders: You know, in New Orleans, the destruction and talking about what it destroyed is different than other cities, right? The African-American community in New Orleans is different than any of the African-American community. So in other states you had free people of color that existed, but none of them existed like New Orleans.

We had some of the richest free people where, at one point in 1825, $2.5 million of property in New Orleans was owned by free people of color, right? I think that that makes this community much different and the destruction in terms of what it destroyed. So in other cities we could talk about, you know, they took homes and they took businesses away.

But in New Orleans, you took homes, you took businesses, and then you really ran through the culture that, which makes America great, those kinds of contributions unbeknownst to most people in terms of black culture, music, arts, and those kinds of things when you look at the history in terms of what it destroyed because it was such a unique city.

Lee: Which means, to your point, having such a huge population that was already here as opposed to like cities in the northeast, we came from migration. Our people from Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and just got there relatively recently is a little different still, and injustice and the violence keep the part (ph) of people, but it’s different than New Orleans because black folks in New Orleans have been living differently here for a very long time.

Sanders: Living differently and, you know, we celebrate, as you well know, Congo Square, which is so important because one of the things that happened in New Orleans, you know, during slavery in addition to us having free people of color, the slaves were allowed to sing and dance in their native tongue, which I think, you know, was the foundation for everything.

But that not only happened in Congo Square. It happened around Claiborne Avenue. It happened in brickyards. And the slaves were dancing, singing during the week every night in their native tongue in there. So those kinds of ties never broke with Africa, which I think creates this city. And that evolved into, you know, using European instruments to develop our own sound.

And as Dr. Michael White would say, you know, jazz was a protest against the European hierarchy and the standard and, you know, black people in New Orleans just took it to another level, and we all celebrate that today.

Lee: That’s it for now. To check out the town hall co-hosting with Joy Reid and Chris Hayes in New Orleans, tune in to MSNBC at 10:00 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, January 17th. The program is called National Day of Racial Healing, an MSNBC town hall. We will also stream live on Peacock and be available on demand the next day. Into America is produced by Isabel Angell, Allison Bailey, Mike Brown, Aaron Dalton, and Max Jacobs. Original music is by Hannis Brown. Our Executive Producer is Aisha Turner. Special thanks to Stefanie Cargill, Finn Percy (ph), and Ben Sellers. I’m Trymaine Lee. See you soon.