Snooks Eaglin: The Human Jukebox
The Human JukeboxSnooks Eaglin could play anything. And we mean anything. Blues, rock and roll, jazz, country, Latin, pop standards — the man claimed to know about 2,500 songs, and if you shouted a...
Better Than Ezra: Good Enough for New Orleans
Good Enough for New OrleansIn the early nineties, if you were a college kid in Louisiana and you went to a bar, there was a very good chance you heard Better Than Ezra before you heard them on the ...
John Minor Wisdom: The Judge Who Made Civil Rights the Law
The Judge Who Made Civil Rights the LawWhen people talk about the civil rights movement in the South, they usually talk about marchers and preachers and activists. They don't talk enough about judg...
A.P. Tureaud: The Lawyer Who Desegregated New Orleans
The Lawyer Who Desegregated New OrleansBefore Ruby Bridges walked through those doors at William Frantz Elementary School in 1960, somebody had to file the lawsuit. That somebody was Alexander Pier...
Danny Barker: The Man Who Saved New Orleans Jazz
The Man Who Saved New Orleans JazzBy the 1960s, traditional New Orleans jazz was dying. The old musicians were passing away, the young ones were playing rock and roll or rhythm and blues, and the b...
James Booker: The Greatest Piano Player Nobody Knew
The Greatest Piano Player Nobody KnewIf you asked Dr. John who the best pianist in New Orleans was, he wouldn't hesitate. Harry Connick Jr. would tell you the same thing. So would Allen Toussaint. ...
Pierre Lafitte: The Pirate's Brother
The Pirate's BrotherPierre Lafitte was born around 1770, likely in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), and along with his younger brother Jean, became one of the most notorious smuggle...
James Gallier Jr.: The Architect Who Gave New Orleans Its Face
The Architect Who Gave New Orleans Its FaceJames Gallier Jr. was born in 1827 in New Orleans, Louisiana — the son of James Gallier Sr., an Irish-born architect who had already established himself a...
Earl King: The King Who Made New Orleans an R&B Empire
The King Who Made New Orleans an R&B EmpireEarl King was born Earl Silas Johnson IV on February 7, 1934, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He grew up listening to Guitar Slim, whose wild stage perform...
Ruthie the Duck Girl: The French Quarter's Finest
The French Quarter's Roller-Skating Duck LadyEvery great city needs its characters — the people who refuse to live by anyone else's rules, who turn the sidewalk into a stage and make you question w...
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...
