Stories tagged "African American": 104
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Doratha "Dodie" Smith-Simmons
As a teen, Doratha “Dodie” Smith-Simmons entered the Civil Rights Movement in New Orleans, following in the footsteps of her older sister, Dorothy Smith Venison. Simmons’ activism began as a means to…
Ruby Bridges: Integrating William T. Frantz Elementary School
On the morning of November 14, 1960, Ruby Bridges, a six-year-old Black New Orleanian, took her first steps through the front door of William T. Frantz Elementary School (now Akili Academy). A mob of…
Leona Tate: Integrating McDonogh 19 Elementary School
In the 1954 Supreme Court Case Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment prohibiting states from…
Marie Galatas Ortiz
Marie Galatas Ortiz, born in New Orleans in 1939, participated in many demonstrations, marches, boycotts, and founded Grass Roots Organization for Women (GROW), an organization once housed at 1610…
The Legend of New Orleans French Bread: Chretien’s Bakery and B.C. Francingues Bakery
In 2013, the reality cooking television series Top Chef filmed its eleventh season in New Orleans at 1231-33 Bourbon Street to revitalize the struggling restaurant and tourism industry following the…
Enslaved Bakers and the Foreign French: D’Aquin, Bouny, and Poincy Bakeries
Before the Civil War, enslaved labor was an integral part of the commercial baking industry and the overall economy in New Orleans. While food historians note the role that French, Spanish, and Anglo…
Fort Pike
In 1819, President James Monroe commissioned Fort Pike’s construction alongside six other forts on the Louisiana coast. [2] Originally known as Fort Petites Coquilles, Monroe commissioned the fort…
The Spirit: Marie Laveau & Congo Square
While Marie Laveau worshipped at Catholic Mass in St. Louis Cathedral, she likely practiced Vodou at Congo Square. While no official documents place Laveau at Congo Square, many eyewitness accounts…
African Presence in Algiers
On December 31, 2019, the Algiers Tricentennial Committee and the Algiers community of New Orleans dedicated this historic Middle Passage marker at what is now the Algiers Courthouse honoring those…
Aimée Potens Residence
Aimée Potens was the mother of Louis Charles and Jean Baptiste Roudanez, the founder and publisher of L’Union, the South’s first black newspaper, and the New Orleans Tribune, America’s first black…
Economy Hall
Soon after Union forces seized New Orleans from the Confederacy in 1862, calls for equality reverberated among free people of color. Hundreds assembled at frequent mass meetings and rallies at Economy…
Residence of Jean Baptiste Roudanez
Jean Baptiste Roudanez (1815-1895), a free man of color, served as publisher of L’Union, the South’s first black newspaper, and the New Orleans Tribune, America’s first black daily newspaper. Dr.…
Tombs of Jean Baptiste Roudanez and his mother Aimée Potens
Jean Baptiste Roudanez, publisher of L’Union, the South’s first black newspaper, and the New Orleans Tribune, America’s first black daily newspaper, is entombed alongside his mother Aimée Potens, a…
Tomb of Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez
Faubourg Tremé is home to the oldest existing cemetery in the City of New Orleans, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez, founder of the New Orleans Tribune, America’s first black daily…
Residence and Medical Practice of Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez and Family
Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez was a visionary free man of color, doctor, and journalist. Angered by slavery and racial injustice, he took up the cause of equality during the Civil War and Reconstruction…
Mechanics' Institute Massacre
On July 30, 1866, black Republicans attempted to reconvene the Louisiana constitutional convention in an effort to secure voting rights. Held at the Mechanics' Institute, a large crowd of black…
New Orleans Tribune Offices After November 1866: Growing Readership in the Reconstruction Era
In November 1866, the Tribune moved from its offices on Conti Street to 122-124 Exchange Alley. These new digs were in the shadow of the St. Louis Hotel (site now occupied by the Omni Royal Orleans…
L’Union, the South’s First Black Newspaper and New Orleans Tribune, America’s First Black Daily Newspaper
You are standing in front of the L’Union and the New Orleans Tribune building, the birthplace of civil rights history in the Crescent City. Here, surrounded by the howling madness of the Civil War,…
Claiborne Avenue
Claiborne Avenue, from Treme to the 7th Ward, is a corridor packed to the rafters with memory, resistance and a refusal to be assimilated, dominated and denigrated. It is rockin’ – from one side to…
A Movement Without Marches: Black Women in Public Housing
Starting in the 1920s and increasing exponentially in the 1930s, and onwards, the urban landscape of New Orleans, like many urban municipalities across the country, began to change as a result of a…
Our Lady of Sacred Heart Church and the Herriman Family
Now an empty lot and the site of two pop-up restaurants, this corner was once the location of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart church. It was here, on Sunday, October 17, that the cartoonist George Joseph…
Fraternité No. 20 Masonic Lodge
At the former intersection of Exchange Alley and St. Louis Street — now a parking gate for the Louisiana Supreme Court — once stood the meeting place for Fraternité No. 20, a racially integrated…
Café du Monde: Coffee in George Herriman’s Krazy Kat Comics
There is no way of knowing if young George Herriman ever accompanied his parents to the historic Café du Monde Coffee Stand, which was established in the New Orleans French Market in 1862, eighteen…
Stephen Herriman House
Here — near the corner of Royal Street and Esplanade Avenue — a white riverboat captain named Stephen Herriman, originally from Long Island, made his home from 1843 until his death in 1854.…