Oretha Castle Haley: The Woman Who Desegregated Canal Street
The Woman Who Desegregated Canal StreetIn 1960, a twenty-one-year-old Southern University student named Oretha Castle sat down at a segregated lunch counter at McCrory's on Canal Street and refused...
Marc Morial: The Mayor's Son Who Became Mayor
The Mayor's Son Who Became MayorWhen Marc Morial became mayor of New Orleans in 1994, the comparisons to his father were inevitable. Ernest "Dutch" Morial had been the city's first Black mayor, a p...
Alejandro O'Reilly: Bloody O'Reilly and the Birth of Spanish New Orleans
Bloody O'Reilly and the Birth of Spanish New OrleansIn August 1769, an Irish-born Spanish general named Alejandro O'Reilly sailed into New Orleans with three thousand troops and a mission: take con...
Iberville: Canada's Greatest Soldier, Louisiana's Explorer
Canada's Greatest Soldier, Louisiana's ExplorerBefore there was a New Orleans, before Bienville saw the crescent in the river, there was his older brother — Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville — leading Fr...
Louis Charles Roudanez: America's First Black Daily Newspaper
The Man Who Published America's First Black Daily NewspaperIn 1862, while the Civil War was still raging, a Creole physician in New Orleans named Louis Charles Roudanez did something that had never...
Homer Plessy: The Shoemaker Who Changed America
The Shoemaker Who Changed AmericaOn June 7, 1892, a shoemaker from the Faubourg Marigny named Homer Plessy boarded a train car reserved for white passengers. He sat down, was asked to move, and ref...
Bienville: The Father of New Orleans
The Father of New OrleansEvery city has a founder, and New Orleans has Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville — a Canadian-born French colonial officer who looked at a swampy crescent bend in the Miss...
Adrien de Pauger: The Man Who Drew the French Quarter
The Man Who Drew the French QuarterEvery street in the French Quarter — every block, every intersection, every right angle in that iconic grid — exists because of a French engineer named Adrien de ...
Marie Laveau: The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans
The Voodoo Queen of New OrleansNo figure in New Orleans history is more mythologized, more misunderstood, and more enduring than Marie Laveau. She's been the subject of songs, novels, TV shows, and...
Bernardo de Gálvez: The Spaniard Who Won the Revolution from New Orleans
The Spaniard Who Won the American Revolution from New OrleansThe American Revolution is usually told as a story about thirteen colonies fighting the British. But one of the most important campaigns...
Oliver Pollock: The Man Who May Have Invented the Dollar Sign
The Man Who May Have Invented the Dollar SignOliver Pollock might be responsible for the most widely recognized symbol in the world, and almost nobody has heard of him. He's the man most often cred...
Danny Granger: Metairie's Most Improved
Metairie's Most ImprovedDanny Granger was born in New Orleans in 1983 and grew up in Metairie, where he became one of the most dominant high school basketball players the metro area had ever seen —...
Ben Turpin: The First Pie in the Face
The First Pie in the FaceBefore there was slapstick comedy as we know it, before Laurel and Hardy, before the Three Stooges, there was a cross-eyed kid from New Orleans named Ben Turpin who helped ...
Wardell Quezergue: The Creole Beethoven
The Creole BeethovenIf you've ever heard "Mr. Big Stuff" by Jean Knight, or "Barefootin'" by Robert Parker, or "Chapel of Love" by the Dixie Cups, you've heard Wardell Quezergue's work — even if yo...
Tommy Wiseau: Oh Hi, Chalmette
Oh Hi, ChalmetteNobody knows exactly where Tommy Wiseau comes from, which is fitting for a man who made the most mysteriously funded, bizarrely compelling bad movie in the history of cinema. What w...
Landon Collins: Algiers to the NFL
Algiers to the NFLLandon Collins was born in New Orleans in 1994 and grew up in Algiers, on the West Bank side of the river. He was a kid from the neighborhood, playing football on the same fields ...
Emile Weil: The Man Who Built the Saenger
The Man Who Built the SaengerIf you've ever walked into the Saenger Theatre on Canal Street — looked up at that ceiling painted like a Mediterranean night sky, complete with twinkling stars and dri...
B.G.: The Kid Who Invented Bling
The Kid Who Invented BlingChristopher Dorsey was twelve years old when he signed with Cash Money Records. Twelve. He was a kid from the Freret neighborhood of Uptown New Orleans — his father had be...
The Hot Boys: Uptown's Supergroup
Uptown's SupergroupIn the summer of 1997, Cash Money Records did something that would change hip-hop: they put four young rappers from Uptown New Orleans together and called them the Hot Boys. B.G....
Magnolia's GhostJames Tapp Jr. grew up in the Magnolia Projects and called himself Magnolia Slim before the world knew him as Soulja Slim. He attended Cohen High School before dropping out, and by ...
