Bloody Bogalusa and the Deacons For Defense And Justice
That was the creed espoused by the Deacons for Defense and Justice, a paramilitary group of Black men dedicated to protecting civil rights workers and regular Black citizens during the bloody battles pitched on the city streets and country roads of Jim Crow-era Louisiana. Continue Reading
Horace Logan Has Left The Building
The Peculiar Genius Of Lafcadio Hearn
What makes it remarkable is that Lafcadio Hearn had quit our city some 130 years earlier in 1887 for the greener pastures of Martinique in the Caribbean Sea.
He would die in 1904.
And over a century later a raucous street party would fete the man who famously spoke on New Orleans saying “…it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes than to own the whole state of Ohio.”
Chain-Smoking Rebel Playwright Lillian Hellman Was Born In New Orleans
Blacklisted as a Communist sympathizer by Hollywood.
Her most famous work banned in Chicago, London, and Boston.
Drunkard.
Headstrong.
Lust-filled, and promiscuous.
A “tough broad … the kind of girl who can take the tops off bottles with her teeth.”
Louche companion of Dashiell Hammet who cracked Hellman in the jaw at a party one night, and refused to marry her in the course of their 30-year affair.
Elia Kazan would call Hellman a “bitch with balls.” But in light of each of their appearances at the McCarthy hearings on Communism in the US it could be said that Lillian had enough balls for the both of them. Continue Reading
‘All Power to the People.’ The Black Panthers Desire Stronghold in New Orleans
It’s fall 1970, and the folks who live in New Orleans’ Desire Housing Project are verbally unloading on police officers who have shown up 250 strong in an effort to forcibly evict the local chapter of the Black Panther Party.
Little kids are chanting, middle-aged folks are hollering, and old folks are shouting as well. The crowd is determined to drive the police out of their neighborhood, and in a result that seems shocking a half-century later; they did just that. The cops withdrew. Continue Reading
They Called Him Wild: Notes On The Life of New Orleans Gangster Telly Hankton
His prisoner number is #589293. Continue Reading
Gay. Sanctified. Superstar: Notes On The Life Of Gospel Singer Raymond Anthony Myles
‘I Don’t Need To Be A Millionaire.’ Notes On The Life Of Anthony ‘Tuba Fats’ Lacen
‘They Caught The Devil And Put Him In Jail In Eudora Arkansas’: Notes On The Life Of Tony Joe White
The Mississippi River was a one mile walk to the east. Continue Reading