In 1837, a wealthy German banker

I am not an art historian, but I have an important art history lesson to share with you.

In 1837, a wealthy German banker and merchant in New Orleans and his New Orleanian wife had a portrait commissioned of their three children, Elizabeth, Léontine, and Frederick Frey Jr. By the end of that same year, the two girls would be dead from illness; a few years later, Frederick Jr. would be dead as well, and the family's fortunes would be reversed during a recession. The family had to sell their properties, including their slaves, to satisfy their debts, but the portrait remained in the family's possession.

In 1972, a descendant of the family donated the painting to the New Orleans Museum of Art, revealing to the museum's curators that there was a fourth child hidden in the painting.

However, the New Orleans Museum of Art never investigated this claim and the painting went into its holdings until it was eventually sold in 2005 at auction to a private collector. This collector had the painting carefully restored, at which time they uncovered the rumored fourth child: a slave boy who was owned by the Freys, Bélizaire. Bélizaire and his mother were part of the Frey's possessions that were sold, and of the four children in the painting, he was the only one who survived into adulthood. And if you look carefully, Bélizaire bears a certain resemblance to the other children in the painting. 

As for why or when he was painted over, no one is quite sure -- they believe it must have happened in the late 19th or early 20th century, which makes sense because this is around the same time that the myth of Lost Cause of the Confederacy became popular here in the South glorifying the Southerners' treasonous attempt to break away from our nation and downplaying the role that slavery had in the cause of the Civil War. Bélizaire, who had once been important enough to include in a family portrait, now became inconvenient to the Frey family, proof of their cruelty and participation in slavery, and he needed to be hidden away .

I tell you this story for a couple of reasons: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York recently acquired this painting. I am happy about this, as I will finally be able to see it with my own eyes. But I am also disappointed that this painting that tells such an important story about the South and the attempted erasure of the South's sins will be so far removed from its origins. This painting should have been restored by the New Orleans Museum of Art and displayed there as a valuable lesson about the city's history, both pre- and post-Civil War. Instead, it was hidden away.

But I also tell you this story because that erasure of Black history and its importance in our culture continues today, more furiously than ever in this political environment. Ron DeSantis' "anti-woke" campaign and the offshoots of it across this country is in large part an attempt to bury or alter our history of slavery in this country because it makes some white people uncomfortable. It's happening all over our country and it's gaining momentum. 

On Saturday, the state of Arkansas announced that the AP African-American History class will no longer be available in public schools and that if it is taught, no credit will be granted -- two days before school was set to start. 

And here in my neck of the woods just last week, a Conroe ISD trustee member claimed a child was "traumatized" by seeing a poster of children of different races holding hands. Her solution to this "trauma" is to remove all displays of racial inclusivity and pride, because God forbid a white child be reminded they have to share this planet with someone who doesn't look exactly like them. 

So much of this political moment feels like that darkly misguided time in the late 19th century, early 20th century when white people created the Lost Cause myth to assuage their guilt and justify their actions by putting up statutes to traitors and changing the narrative about the Confederacy itself. Back then, as it is now, it is all an attempt to return to a world where white people and their history are centered, and the inconvenient, embarrassing, and unjustifiable history of white people's violence, our abuses, our sins are hidden away. 

It's the erasure of Bélizaire all over again.