The state of Louisiana hasn’t passed a law against teaching its history of racism, but not for lack of trying. Last year, state Rep. Ray Garofalo, chairman of the House Education Committee, had to drop his bill that would have banned such “divisive concepts” after flubbing its rollout by saying schoolteachers should address “the good, the bad, the ugly” of topics like slavery. When fellow Republican state Rep. Stephanie Hilferty noted that “there is no good to slavery,” Garofalo quickly agreed, but a viral video of his original remark provoked a national outcry. He lost his chairmanship in the backlash, but now, in a new legislative session in Baton Rouge, Garofalo is back with a bill similar to his last one, and to others across the country targeting so-called critical race theory.
The history wars are playing out differently in New Orleans, where the names of enslavers and segregationists are being removed from school buildings, streets, and other public spaces. Yet, even as symbols of white supremacy come down, the false historical narrative they represent has proved difficult to root out. In fact, as I learned when I applied for a license to give guided tours, an unlikely arm of city government—the Ground Transportation Bureau—is still pushing it.
Prospective tour guides have to pass a history test, and the city’s website includes a link to buy its designated study guide, the 2002 edition of the book Beautiful Crescent: A History of New Orleans by Joan B. Garvey and Mary Lou Widmer, first published in 1982. The title was familiar—it was my eighth grade Louisiana studies textbook in 1994—but I didn’t remember it referring, as it does, to “dirty Indians,” or calling formerly enslaved people “human trash.” Rereading it recently, I was unsettled that I hadn’t been more scandalized by it as a kid.
Lodged in the city’s bureaucracy all these years, Beautiful Crescent is a testament to the reach of history curricula beyond schoolhouse walls. Its version of the past, long on white beneficence and short on Black lives, has persisted with support from New Orleans’ multibillion dollar tourism industry, which has its own interest in avoiding “divisive” accounts of racism.