IN THE BIZ TOURISM
Historical Memory How do we bring tourism into the future by reckoning honestly with the past? BY J E NNIF E R G IB SO N SCHE CT ER
18
BIZ NEW ORLEANS
NOVEMBER 2021
I L L U ST R AT I O N B Y T O N Y H E A L E Y
Jennifer Gibson Schecter was once a tourist in New Orleans herself and is now proud to call NOLA home. She also writes the Wednesday Tourism Blog on BizNewOrleans.com.
sites like these is built on a suspension of ONE OF THE PROFOUND BLESSINGS IN LIFE disbelief that people suffered. is that when we know better, we have the Thomas also spoke to the merchandise opportunity and the obligation to do better. Each day brings a new possibility to learn that accompanies the tourist experience in more and reconsider how we walk in this New Orleans. She shared images of items world. In a place like New Orleans, which sold in tourist shops in the French Quarter is steeped in tradition, doing things differ- of old-style “Mammy” advertising, Black ently can be met with resistance, both girl dolls in aprons and “Mammy” salt internally and externally. In industries and pepper shakers, all representing the such as hospitality and tourism, which “happy servitude” of Black people. “Tourists are encouraged to consume are part of a complicated economy affected by federal, state, local and cultural policies, or gaze upon Black culture without the change can be even tougher to implement. uncomfortable acknowledgment of an But this is also a place of resiliency, and we exploitative slave system or the persistent have shown time and again we are able to legacy of racial and class inequality,” said Thomas. “New Orleans tourists then pivot and move forward. With these mental rumblings in mind, become acquainted with a representation of Black lens that leaves the actual Black I recently had the good fortune to attend (virtually) a lecture entitled “Legacies New Orleans invisible.” Thomas also shared her research on of American Slavery: Tourism, Race and Historical Memory” organized by Dillard financial and investment resources, espeUniversity’s Ray Charles Program in cially those made available post-Katrina, African American Material Culture. It which were prioritized into the tourist was led by Dr. Lynell Thomas, a native zones over traditionally Black neighborNew Orleanian, and professor and grad- hoods like the Lower Ninth Ward and uate program director at University of Gentilly. Her research shows that tourism has contributed to the separate and Massachusetts Boston. Through her academic research, Thomas unequal housing patterns in New Orleans. The resistance and agency of Black New traces the roots of inequality and the legacy of slavery in the New Orleans Orleanians is also a vital part of the story tourist industry. She has identified a of tourism. Here, Thomas points to acts paradoxical construction of Blackness of resistance before the Civil War ended, that acknowledges and celebrates Black events during Reconstruction, the civil cultural contributions while simultane- disobedience of Homer Plessy, and actions into the present with the removal of the ously insisting on Black social inferiority. “In the tourist narrative that I studied, Confederate statues and the ongoing work I saw the way that it limited its histor- of Take ’Em Down Nola as a different way ical focus to the colonial and antebellum to experience New Orleans. In that vein, period, focusing almost exclusively on the she is currently co-editing “A People’s purportedly exceptional race relations that Guide to New Orleans” with Dr. Elizabeth distinguished New Orleans from the rest Steeby, a professor at the University of of the slave-holding South,” said Thomas. New Orleans. The guide is online and “Presenting New Orleans as benefitting features places of grassroots activism and from the most liberal and refined elements sites of resistance in New Orleans history. of Southern culture while avoiding its The website is still being developed and most brutal, inhumane and inegalitarian has a growing number of sites of interest features...And we see these racial fictions at https://apeoplesguide.org /guides/ being exemplified by the modernizing of new-orleans/. Her lecture was timely and important. slave quarters into trendy restaurants and As we recover from the pandemic, we hotels and tourist sites.” Two examples she cited were advertise- have an opportunity to revisit and change ments for Nottoway Plantation and Oak how we position tourism in our region. Alley Plantation. Nottoway’s ad claimed How can we bring justice and equality visitors could, “relive 19th Century for everyone—employees, employers, citizens and visitors? I look forward to elegance”; and Oak Alley invited visitors to consider the “Romance, History and learning more in her book, “Desire and Beauty” of the site. There is no elegance Disaster in New Orleans: Tourism, Race, or romance in enslaving human beings. and Historical Memory” and I hope you Plantations would not have existed join me in ordering it from a local Blackwithout the Transatlantic slave trade. The owned bookstore such as Baldwin & Co. or contemporary business model for tourism Community Book Center. n
