John Willis Menard: The First Black Man Elected to Congress Was Never Allowed to Serve
The First Black Man Elected to Congress Who Was Never Allowed to ServeIn November 1868, John Willis Menard won a special election to represent Louisiana's 2nd Congressional District in the United S...
F. Edward Hébert: The Streetcar Conductor's Son Who Ran the Pentagon
The Streetcar Conductor's Son Who Ran the PentagonF. Edward Hébert was born in New Orleans in 1901, the son of a streetcar conductor and a schoolteacher, and he grew up to become one of the most po...
Avery Alexander: The Man They Dragged Down the Stairs at City Hall
The Man They Dragged Down the StairsThere's a piece of footage from 1963 that every New Orleanian should see. Avery Alexander, a Baptist minister and civil rights activist, walks into the cafeteria...
Cedric Richmond: From New Orleans East to the White House
From New Orleans East to the White HouseCedric Richmond grew up in New Orleans East, the sprawling subdivision that represents a particular chapter of Black middle-class aspiration in the city. His...
Michael Hahn: The Bavarian Immigrant Who Became Lincoln's Governor
The Bavarian Immigrant Who Became Lincoln's GovernorMichael Hahn was born in Bavaria in 1830 and arrived in New Orleans as a ten-year-old immigrant. By 1864, he was governor of Louisiana—appointed ...
Sidney Barthelemy: The Quiet Mayor Who Held the City Together
The Quiet Mayor Who Held the City TogetherSidney Barthelemy never got the credit he deserved. He was the second Black mayor of New Orleans, serving from 1986 to 1994, and he took office at the wors...
Henry Warmoth: The Twenty-Six-Year-Old Governor of Reconstruction Louisiana
The Twenty-Six-Year-Old Governor of Reconstruction LouisianaHenry Clay Warmoth was twenty-six years old when he became governor of Louisiana in 1868. Let that sink in. A twenty-six-year-old Union A...
William Jefferson: The Ninety Thousand Dollars in the Freezer
The Ninety Thousand Dollars in the FreezerIn the long and colorful history of Louisiana political corruption, few images have been as unforgettable as the one from William Jefferson's kitchen: nine...
Sidney Bechet: The New Orleans Genius Paris Loved More Than America Did
The Genius Who Left New Orleans and Conquered ParisSidney Joseph Bechet was born on May 14, 1897, in the Seventh Ward of New Orleans, into a Creole family of musicians. He was a prodigy — playing c...
Mel Ott: The Gretna Kid Who Hit 511 Home Runs for the Giants
The Gretna Kid Who Hit 511 Home RunsMelvin Thomas Ott was born on March 2, 1909, in Gretna, Louisiana — just across the river from New Orleans, close enough to hear the steamboat whistles and feel ...
Pistol Pete Maravich: The Greatest Show on the Basketball Court
Pistol Pete and the Basketball That Went EverywherePete Maravich wasn't born in New Orleans — he was born in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, in 1947. But New Orleans is where he became "Pistol Pete," and ...
Al Scramuzza: The Crawfish King of New Orleans
"Seafood City, very pretty! You'll never be a looza, if you come see Al Scramuzza!" If you lived in New Orleans anytime between the 1960s and the 2000s, that jingle is lodged permanently in your ...
Lafcadio Hearn: The Outsider Who Understood New Orleans Best
Every city has that one person who sees it more clearly than anyone who was born there. In New Orleans, that person was Lafcadio Hearn, a Greek-Irish journalist who arrived in the Crescent City in ...
Louis Prima: The Wildest Entertainer New Orleans Ever Made
New Orleans has produced more than its share of larger-than-life musicians, but Louis Prima might have been the largest of them all. Born in the French Quarter to a Sicilian family, Prima became on...
Who Invented Jazz? The Ghost of Buddy Bolden
Before there were recordings, before there were jazz clubs with velvet ropes, before the word jazz even existed, there was a cornet player in New Orleans so loud you could hear him across the river...
George Herriman: The Cartoonist Who Left Treme and Changed Comics
If you have ever loved a comic strip, a cartoon, or any visual storytelling that mixes art with absurdity, you owe a debt to a man born in Treme in 1880. George Herriman created Krazy Kat, which cr...
John Kennedy Toole: The Genius New Orleans Almost Lost
There is a bronze statue on Canal Street, right where the old D.H. Holmes department store used to stand, of a large man in a hunting cap clutching a shopping bag. That's Ignatius J. Reilly, the fi...
Al Copeland: The Spiciest Man New Orleans Ever Produced
New Orleans has produced jazz musicians, literary giants, and Mardi Gras royalty. But only one person built a fried chicken empire, raced speedboats, married four times, and put up a Christmas ligh...
Leah Chase: The Queen Who Fed a Movement in New Orleans
There is a particular kind of New Orleans magic that happens when someone puts a plate of food in front of you and tells you to sit down and eat. No menu. No discussion. You just eat. Leah Chase pe...
The Boswell Sisters: New Orleans' Forgotten Vocal Legends
Before Ella Fitzgerald found her voice, three sisters from Camp Street in New Orleans were doing something nobody had ever heard. Martha, Connee, and Vet Boswell turned jazz into vocal arrangements...
