louisiana
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Louisiana School Co-founder Accused of Making Student Eat Rat Feces, Stepping on Another Student’s Face
The horrifying story of T.M. Landry College Preparatory School is getting clearer and bleaker as more details of abuse come to light during a state police investigation. According to the New York Times, which broke the original story, Louisiana State Police have been looking more closely at abusive behavior that seemingly ran rampant at the…
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It’s Official. New Orleans Is My Favorite City in America. Here Are 10 Reasons Why
1. Cliché as this will be, I’m starting with the quite obvious ability to walk around with that drank. Sure, Bourbon Street smells like Hurl of Christmas Past and you’re likely to see a person laid out face down in the street, not dead, just passed out from all of the Everclear 151 and sugar…
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Who Would Have Thought Touring a Louisiana Plantation Was a Good Activity for a Bachelor Party Weekend?
I just got back from New Orleans, where a bunch of the homies and I took a Homie Trip to celebrate my upcoming nuptials. While what happens in New Orleans stays on Instagram, there were a few planned activities that were both fun and educational. For instance, we took an airboat tour of a swamp…
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Louisiana Man Struck and Killed While Picking Up Debris From Roadway; Crass Social Media Posts Following Death Spark Outrage
A 31-year-old man was struck and killed by a vehicle Tuesday, apparently while he was removing debris from the roadway of U.S. Highway 171. According to KPLC-TV, authorities with the Louisiana State Police determined that Sherell L. Lewis Jr. had stopped his vehicle around 3:15 p.m. on the side of the southbound lanes to clean…
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Louisiana Prosecutors Try but Can’t Stop Ex-Felons From Regaining Voting Rights
Despite a last-ditch effort to overturn a recent bill restoring voting rights to ex-felons in Louisiana, legislators in the Statehouse recently passed a bill doing just that, another victory for criminal-justice reform. The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that of the 70,000 ex-felons who served time in Louisiana prisons and who are currently on probation or…
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Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association Says 1,300 People Have Been Held in Jail for 4 Years Without Trial
So much for the Sixth Amendment, which should guarantee a suspect the right to a speedy trial. According to the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association, that is just not the case locally, with some 1,300 people being locked up in local jails for four years while awaiting their trials. About 70 people have been waiting for five…
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5 Years After the Unmarked Graves of 1,000 Enslaved People Were Uncovered Near a Shell Refinery, Descendants Will Be Able to Pay Their Respects
Some five years ago, the unmarked graves of as many as 1,000 enslaved people who were forced to work in the fields of plantations in Ascension Parish, La., were uncovered by an archaeologist working for Shell Convent Refinery. The discovery was heralded by one expert as among the largest unknown burial grounds discovered in the…
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Tracing Your Roots: My Adopted Black Daughter Wants to Know Her Origins
A white mother and black daughter encounter the genealogical “brick wall” so many people face while researching African-American families during slavery. Dear Professor Gates: I have worked very hard to trace back the ancestry of my adopted daughter Rasa Braswell, who is African American. (I am Caucasian.) However, I hit a snag once I got…
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Speeding Off-Duty Cop Slams Into Car, Killing an Infant, but the Child’s Mother Also Faces Homicide Charges: Report
A Baton Rouge, La., police officer was arrested almost two weeks ago on charges of negligent homicide after being accused of causing a crash that killed a 1-year-old infant and injured multiple other people. Normally, one would think that the story would end there, with the officer going to trial and facing whatever repercussions were…
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Is Anyone Shocked That Slavery Continued a Century After Emancipation?
Given the state of the world today, and being a black woman in America, I’m rarely shocked, especially when it comes to racial terror and exploitation. But admittedly, I was taken aback when an African-American historian and genealogist presented actual documentation of black communities in the Deep South that were enslaved well into the 1960s.…