NOLA Tricentennial


BLACK NEW ORLEANS TRICENTENNIAL: AN EXERCISE



What did Africans who morphed into Creoles and African Americans do in a place named New Orleans between 1718/1719 and 2018?



Between now and mid-2018, I shall explore that question by compiling an eclectic bibliographic essay and writing brief comments inspired by the entries for books and articles, by fragments of family stories and stories told to me by New Orleanians, by certain childhood memories of the Crescent City, and by a feeling that "official" narratives of three hundred years will repress some information that citizens and potential tourists should know.  I am collaborating with Kalamu ya Salaam on this project and anticipate that our individual contributions will overlap and differ in productive ways.  Our common aim is to create a document that might galvanize thinking among middle and high school students in a future.



The essay will be indebted to such works as John W. Blassingame's Black New Orleans 1860-1880 (1973), Tom Dent's poetry collections Magnolia Street (1976) and Blue Lights and River Songs (1982), Freddi Williams Evans's Congo Square: African Roots in New Orleans (2011),  Keith Weldon Medley's Black Life in Old New Orleans (2014), James B. Borders IV's Marking Time Making Place: An Essential Chronology of Blacks in New Orleans Since 1718 (2015), Marcus B. Christian's seminal poem "I Am New Orleans" and Arthur Pfister's "My Name Is New Orleans," a tribute poem  dedicated to Christian.  Orthodox history and ethnography, parahistory and mythology, and poetry will be essential ingredients in the gumbo.



Salaam's writing will probably focus on geopolitics and marine, mechanical, and digital technologies.  My efforts will  link standard bibliography entries with  idiosyncratic short narratives derived from some of them.  The ten  main categories I want to focus on are



Art

The rule of law

Labor and business enterprises

Education

Photography

Music

Special groups and rituals

Literature

Housing

Churches and spiritual affairs



The appropriate sub-categories will emerge somehow.



In June, July, and August 2018, Salaam and I might conduct a series of public conversations based on our discoveries.  I welcome suggestions from readers who have special thoughts about what Black New Orleans  Tricentennial  documentation ought to incorporate.



Jerry W. Ward, Jr.            September 5, 2017




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