Marc Morial

I saw a census from New Orleans in 1940 that there were 40 black grocery stores in New Orleans in 1940.

There were like 10 black newspapers in 1940 because the white New Orleans, you couldn't shop in white New Orleans, generally.

And so our folks, not only in New Orleans, but in Memphis and Birmingham and Montgomery and Atlanta and

You know, I'm sure in Greenville and Columbia and Charlotte and Raleigh and Durham, Durham being one of the capitals of black capitalism, I mean, built communities and built businesses and built sustainability.

I mean, it was something to behold, you know, when we think about it.

And then when civil rights came, we became much more mainstream.

It was about the job in government or the job in the private sector, the job of the company that we couldn't get, that our parents couldn't get.

In a place like New Orleans before 1965, 66, 67, a black person could not even be a garbage man.

Right?

A black person could not drive a bus.

A black person's only job in government was as a janitor.

Unless you were in the all-Black school where you were teachers and administrators and coaches and principals.

Right.

And so I reflect on that because I think you can't effectively navigate the future unless you have some sensibility of the past.

And all of the work that helped...

Generations of people get over it, move past it, and the struggles and the battles that they waged.

Man, it was hard work.

We created a bit of a movement and it was a movement to rebuild New

New Orleans.

Yes.