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The positive response to my book, The 1868 St. Bernard Parish Massacre: Blood in the Cane Fields, from the local community has been unreal and humbling! There is a clear demand for this era in history. For those still interested in buying a copy and/or getting it signed, here are some upcoming book signings:

• Saturday, November 4: The 1850 House Museum Store, 11am – 1pm
• Sunday, November 5: The Coffee House, Arabi, 2pm – 6pm
• Saturday, December 2: Barnes & Noble, Metairie, 3:30pm – 5:30pm
• Thursday, December 7, Cafe Aquarius, Chalmette, (tentative; tbd)
• Saturday, December 9: Fair Grinds Coffee House located at 2221 St. Claude, New Orleans, 12pm – tbd

 

Hello all!  As you may or may not have noticed, I have been on hiatus from this blog for almost two years.  This is for a few reasons.  First, I decided to go back to graduate school, which is undauntedly time consuming as I teach high school.  However, the main reason is that I have a book deal from the History Press regarding the 1868 St. Bernard Parish Massacre, which was one of the topics of my earliest blogs (don’t judge my writing from that long ago, please).

Well, the book is complete and now available for pre-order via Amazon.  It will be officially published on October 16, 2017.  Please feel free to get a copy if you’re interested in Black history, Louisiana history, and/or Reconstruction.  If not, this book may still appeal to you!  I put a lot of time, dedication, and primary research into it.

More details to come for a book release party for those in the New Orleans area!

And hopefully I’m back to delivering content.  Feel free to leave comments on where you think I should focus on for my first post back!

On September 14, 1874, over 5,000 heavily armed members of the White League, a white supremacist paramilitary organization, mobilized to overthrow the Reconstruction government of Louisiana.  Under the guidance of John McEnery, a Democrat upset at his recent loss for governorship, they stormed Canal Street to initiate the coup.  There they clashed with the Metropolitan Police, a majority African-American force, and the state militia, comprised of ex-Confederates and Union soldiers, Irish and Italian immigrants, and African-Americans.  The total force of those defending the city was an estimated 3,500.  They were outmanned and outgunned.

Continue reading “The History Surrounding New Orleans’ Confederate Memorials”

In 1933, famed ethnomusicologist John Lomax and his son Alan Lomax pioneered on an arduous journey to capture the sounds of the American South.  They wanted to find African-American folk songs in its purest form as close to the days of slavery as possible.  Lomax believed prisons provided the best source as its walls created a filter to the perversions of popular music.

Continue reading “The Historic Music of Angola Penitentiary”

Ever wondered why people use “axe” as opposed to “ask”?  The linguistic history of the “mispronunciation” is much more intricate than you probably think.

Continue reading “Yatspeak: The History of “Axe” Instead of “Ask””

On a Sunday afternoon on June 24, 1973, around sixty patrons were drinking at the Upstairs Lounge, a gay bar in New Orleans’ French Quarter.  At 7:56pm, the buzzer that signaled a cab sounded.  The man that opened the steel door was greeted by a hurling Molotov cocktail that quickly engulfed the staircase and spread in seconds.  Thirty-two men were brutally murdered; most burned alive.  It is the largest known massacre of gay people in our nation’s history.

Continue reading “The Upstairs Lounge Fire: The Largest Massacre of Gay People in U.S. History”

As the United States entered the 20^th century, increasing population and industrialization led to a nationwide meat shortage.  Moving west to acquire more land for grazing or hunting became a limited option as the frontier closed and buffalos were hunted into near extinction.  In southern Louisiana, newly invasive water hyacinths, similar to water lilies, transported to New Orleans by Japanese tourists during the 1884 World’s Fair were creating massive ecological dilemmas.  In 1910, an audacious plan was put forth to address both concerns: import hippopotamuses from Africa to the bayous of Louisiana to consume the water hyacinths and provide a tasty source of meat for a hungry nation.

Continue reading “South Louisiana: The Almost Hippopotamus Capital of the West”

New Orleans’ St. Louis Cathedral faced a myriad of obstacles through its circa 300 years of existence.  It was first built in 1718, the same year the city was founded under French explorer and colonizer Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville.  The Great New Orleans Fire of 1788 scorched the original structure, and a new structure was completed in 1794.  Enlargement and reconstruction in 1850 eradicated much of the original edifice, giving the city its current building.  In 1909, the Cathedral faced an uncharacteristic obstacle: nitroglycerin.

Continue reading “The Infamous Bombing of St. Louis Cathedral”

Continue reading “ExhibitBe by GoPro”