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Background The history of African-American life in Louisiana is a remarkable story of survival in a hostile world. The heroes are plentiful -- largely everyday people whose sacrifice and courage made a difference. “There is black history untold in the memories of the hundreds of thousands of grandmothers, grandfathers, great-aunts,” observed Alex Haley, author of Roots. The EZ Content Blueprint accompanying this unit is largely the “everyday history” of Alex Haley’s grandmothers, grandfathers and great-aunts. But there are also countless well-known black Louisianians who made important contributions in various fields. Some are well known, while others have not been recognized widely. Below is a sampling.
In the 1840s, Norbert Rillieux, a New Orleans-born free person of color, invented a multiple-effect evaporator that revolutionized the sugar industry. In 2002, the American Chemical Society designated his invention a National Historic Chemical Landmark. The celebrated folk artist Clementine Hunter’s longtime home was Melrose plantation in Natchitoches Parish, where her extraordinary murals can be seen. Louisiana had its own Thurgood Marshall. New Orleans attorney A. P. Tureaud devoted his life to civil rights litigation. Arna Bontemps, one of the leading lights of an artistic awakening called the Harlem Renaissance, was born in Alexandria, Louisiana in 1902. A racial incident caused his family to migrate to California when Bontemps was a small child. Today the writer’s childhood home is a museum. Probably
the most famous black Louisianian, a name known the world over, is
Louis Armstrong. Tragically, his home was demolished in the 1960s
to build New Orleans’ city hall. With no historic buildings
left to represent “Satchmo,” the city named an airport
in his honor.
The nation’s first daily newspaper published by African-Americans began in New Orleans in 1864. Its name was La Tribune de la Nouvelle Orleans. The editor was Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez, a Paris trained doctor and prominent New Orleans Creole of color. The paper ceased publication in 1868. The first collection of poems by African-Americans published in the United States appeared in print in New Orleans in 1845. Its editor was Armand Lanusse, a free person of color educator and poet. Lanusse gathered together 85 poems written by 17 free black Louisiana poets under the title Les Cenelles (hawthorn bush berries). In his introduction Lanusse emphasized education as the only hope for African-Americans: “We
are beginning to understand that no matter what situation fate has
placed us in, a good education is a shield against the hostile, malicious
arrows shot at us.” HOME | EDUCATOR AREA | GLOSSARY | IMAGES & PHOTOS | ONLINE RESOURCES ACKNOWLEDGEMENT STATEMENT | CONTACT LOUISIANA DIVISION OF HISTORIC PRESERVATION'S NATIONAL REGISTER |
