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New Orleans Teachers and Students Wrestle With Racial Tension
Every year hundreds of young, idealistic recent college graduates flood into New Orleans to teach at the city’s public schools. But in a school system where the vast majority of students are African American, the mostly white influx of new teachers has brought complaints of racism and cultural insensitivity, and helped birth a new student-led…
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Battle for New Orleans, 6 Years After Katrina
As this weekend’s storm has reminded us, hurricanes can be a threat to U.S. cities on the East Coast as well as the Gulf. But the vast changes that have taken place in New Orleans since Katrina have had little to do with weather, and everything to do with political struggles. Six years after the…
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Hidden New Orleans
The melding of Spanish colonialism and West African, French, Catholic, Native American and Caribbean traditions created a unique and vibrant culture in Louisiana that still feels like nowhere else in the U.S. Add to that a street-based custom of live music and performance, civil rights activism, Creole cuisine and the birthplace of jazz, and you…
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Why You Should Care About the New Orleans Police Trial
Witness testimony began Monday in a trial that has already shocked and polarized the city of New Orleans and brought urgent calls for reform of the city’s entire criminal-justice system. In an incident on Sept. 4, 2005, days after the storm, police officers are accused of raining a hail of bullets on two African-American families…
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An Insider's Guide to the New Orleans Jazz Festival
For seven days spread across two weekends — beginning on the last Friday in April — nearly 400,000 people attend the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (informally known as Jazz Fest), an annual event that features hundreds of acts, representing a wide range of music on a dozen stages. Jazz Fest is one of…
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New Orleans' Police Problem
It began as the story that no one was interested in. No one in the media wanted to believe that officers of the New Orleans Police Department had murdered unarmed civilians and then engaged in a massive and wide-ranging conspiracy to cover it up. And no one wanted to pursue evidence that revealed a department…
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New Orleans: The Real City That Never Sleeps
New Orleans has been through a lot. In the five years since Katrina and four months of the BP drilling disaster, we have seen more than our share of trauma and loss. But this is still a city where the streets are always alive with music and culture. In New Orleans, we dance at funerals…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
