Thursday, July 6, 2017 The Third Page The Newspaper of Baden Germany
THE NAMES OF THE DEAD
In New Orleans, a Pastor Fights Against the Widespread Violence and the Cult of the Gun in America – With a Memorial for the Victims
Treme; the name has a certain ring. In the Treme, the oldest black neighborhood in America, right behind the famous French Quarter, lies the deepest roots of jazz. When David Simon, one of the best storytellers of American television, was looking for a showplace in which to document the difficult rebirth of the storm-deserted New Orleans, his choice fell on Treme. Trendy, but remaining fundamentally the same as it began, so do the Tourism-marketers advertise it as the cradle of Jazz. Only the tables, which Bill Terry has hung on the cast-iron fence before his church, don’t quite fit into this folkloric picture. One could say that they are a fly in the ointment.
They are memorials for the victims of gun violence, everyone around two meters tall, closely inscribed with the names of the murdered. Terry, who is the pastor of St. Anna’s Episcopal Church is continually adding new names, names from all over New Orleans. In the beginning, he had the names engraved, but the list became longer and longer too quickly. In the meantime, he writes the names with a thick, waterproof marker on the tables. On the left, the name, then next the age, and on the right, how each lost his life: Sam Syson, 17, shot.
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