A Message from HNOC President/CEO Daniel Hammer in Response to the Death of George Floyd

Secretary Bunch reminds us that history teaches us what we demand of it. If we demand that it teach us how we can become better, it will. Likewise, if we make no such demands, we cannot expect so much.

The holdings of the Historic New Orleans Collection document triumphs that our community celebrates and systemic injustices that we continue to struggle with. They are testaments to the complexity of our shared past but also harbingers of a brighter future. We are committed to making our collections available to all who seek to find, in history, a path towards a better society. We are committed, moreover, to building our collections in a purposeful way, cognizant that the historic record is scarred by the absence of the voices of the oppressed. The steps we take to be active and inclusive in documenting New Orleans today will have a great impact on what we are able to know tomorrow.

We do not and cannot pursue this work alone. It must be done collectively.

This year we are publishing a book of Civil War–era poetry—much of it protest poetry by African Americans—originally printed in French-language New Orleans newspapers run by free people of color. Lines from an 1865 poem by the prolific author Adolphe Duhart, a free person of color and native New Orleanian, have special resonance at this moment:

Duhart and his contemporaries never did bask in the full warmth of the sunlight of equality. Yet the voices of these poets and activists, as documented in the historic record, can and should guide us toward a better and more just society. Let us demand it.  

Sincerely,

Daniel Hammer
President and CEO
The Historic New Orleans Collection