{"id":1453,"date":"2023-04-24T02:31:33","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T09:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/hist\/?page_id=1453"},"modified":"2023-11-02T14:49:48","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T21:49:48","slug":"new-orleans-la-by-lori-rogers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/hist\/home\/historical-journeys\/new-orleans-la-by-lori-rogers\/","title":{"rendered":"New Orleans, LA – by Lori Rogers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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NEW ORLEANS, LA<\/strong>
\nJuly 5-10, 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to begin by thanking the department chair, William Deverell, for the opportunity to travel to New Orleans and explore the rich culture of this city, including the historic French Quarter and Bourbon Street, as well as touring the Whitney Plantation (Wallace, LA), the nation\u2019s first museum dedicated to telling the story of slavery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Bourbon Street<\/td>\nBourbon Street<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

New Orleans, Louisiana is known for its vibrant history, its jazz clubs, its distinct Creole cuisine, and its spectacular Mardi Gras festival.\u00a0 All of this can be found in the intimate and unique French Quarter neighborhood.\u00a0 One dominant feature throughout this community, where buildings crowd each other, is the spectacular architecture.\u00a0 The balconies overhang the sidewalks, providing shelter from the hot summer sun, or sudden downpours, and are decorated with intricate ironwork.\u00a0 The most popular landmark in the French Quarter is Bourbon Street, which is the site of the annual Mardi Gras celebrations.\u00a0 Also set in the heart of the French Quarter is Jackson Square, which was originally known as the Place d’Armes, and then renamed to honor Andrew Jackson who led troops to victory in the Battle of New Orleans.\u00a0 Jackson Square is bordered by historic structures such as the St. Louis Cathedral (the oldest operating cathedral in the nation), the Presbyt\u00e8re and Cabildo (part of the Louisiana State Museums) and the Pontalba Apartments (the oldest apartment buildings in the U.S.).\u00a0\u00a0 Just across the street is the famed Caf\u00e9 du Monde, serving up beignets and caf\u00e9 au lait 24 hours a day, seven days a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Jackson Square with St. Louis Cathedral in the background<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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Beignets at Caf\u00e9 Du Monde<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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French Quarter Architecture<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

As part of my historical journey to New Orleans, I went to the Whitney Plantation Museum located about 50 miles north of New Orleans in Wallace, Louisiana.\u00a0 In 1752, Ambroise Heidel bought the original land that the plantation sits on and engaged in the business of indigo.\u00a0 In 1803, Ambroise\u2019s youngest son, Jean Jacques Haydel took over the property and transitioned the plantation from indigo to sugar and then in 1820 passed the property on to his sons.\u00a0 After the Civil War, the plantation was sold to Bradish Johnson, who named the property after his grandson, Harry Whitney.\u00a0 In 1999, John Cummings bought the property (which had been added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992) from Formosa Chemicals and Fiber Corporation who had bought the property with the intention to build the world\u2019s largest rayon plant on the site.<\/p>\n

On December 7, 2014, the Whitney Plantation opened its doors to the public for the first time in its 262 year history, becoming America\u2019s first and only museum focused solely on slavery.\u00a0 My 90 minute tour of this museum invoked a series of emotions ranging from anger, sadness and frustration to hopeful, courageous and inspired.\u00a0 The tour allows you to visit the slave quarters, the detached kitchen, the carriage house, the blacksmith shop, the \u201chot box\u201d (where insubordinate workers, or those awaiting sale, were confined) and the \u201cBig House,\u201d which we entered through the back door, just as the enslaved would.\u00a0 On the property, they have also built several memorials including All\u00e8es Gwendolyn Midlo Hall memorial dedicated to 107,000 people who were enslaved in Louisiana and documented in the Louisiana Slave Database and the Wall of Honor which is a memorial dedicated to all of the people who were enslaved on the Whitney Plantation.\u00a0 The most heartbreaking part of the tour for me was The Field of Angels memorial dedicated to 2,200 Louisiana slave children who died before they were three years old.\u00a0 Their names are engraved on granite slabs that also contain quotes describing their everyday life.\u00a0 At the end of the tour, I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. John Cummings, owner of the Whitney Plantation Museum, who is a real estate investor and former trial lawyer.\u00a0 We had a very enjoyable conversation where I was able to learn first-hand about his vision for the museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"Slave<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Slave quarters on the Whitney Plantation<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"With<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
With owner of the Whitney Plantation, Mr. John Cummings<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Although it has been nearly ten years since Hurricane Katrina hit the New Orleans region, I would be remiss to visit the city and not go to see the areas affected by this catastrophic event.\u00a0 I was able to take a tour of the Lakeview, Gentilly and St. Bernard neighborhoods, as well as the Lower Ninth Ward, the neighborhood most devastated by Hurricane Katrina.\u00a0\u00a0 During this tour, I was able to witness the rebuilding in these districts, as well as observe those areas where parts of the devastation still remain.\u00a0 Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana on August 29, 2005, and it is estimated that more than half of New Orleans\u2019 neighborhoods have recovered an impressive 90 percent of their pre-Katrina population.\u00a0 As you can imagine, not everyone was able to return to their communities, but they have found that many residents came to volunteer immediately after the destruction and ended up making New Orleans their home.\u00a0 In addition, after visiting the area two years after Hurricane Katrina, actor and producer Brad Pitt founded Make It Right and pledged to build 150 safe and sustainable homes in the Lower Ninth Ward and has thus far built more than 100 of these homes.\u00a0 Similarly, Barnes and Noble founder, Leonard Riggio founded Project Home Again to assist in the redevelopment of New Orleans.\u00a0 This nonprofit organization has been building and furnishing homes in Gentilly for working-class residents who lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina.\u00a0 Participants in Project Home Again would give their original lot\u2014with or without an unrepaired house\u2014to Project Home Again, and in return, Project Home Again would give them a new house and let them pick out furniture to go with it. All of the new homes were assigned a value of $150,000, and what seems like the best part of the deal, $30,000 of the mortgage was forgiven each year so participants owned it free and clear after five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"The<\/td>\n\"The<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\"Starbucks<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

As the offspring of generations of Louisiana natives, I am particularly delighted to have been able to visit New Orleans and to observe the resilience of its people.\u00a0 Despite the daunting challenges, New Orleans has been able to persevere.<\/p>\n

Lori Ann Rogers<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":219,"featured_media":0,"parent":1073,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1453","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNew Orleans, LA - by Lori Rogers - Van Hunnick History Department<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/hist\/home\/historical-journeys\/new-orleans-la-by-lori-rogers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Orleans, LA - by Lori Rogers - Van Hunnick History Department\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/hist\/home\/historical-journeys\/new-orleans-la-by-lori-rogers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Van Hunnick History Department\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-11-02T21:49:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/hist\/home\/historical-journeys\/new-orleans-la-by-lori-rogers\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/hist\/home\/historical-journeys\/new-orleans-la-by-lori-rogers\/\",\"name\":\"New Orleans, LA - 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