TriPod: New Orleans At 300

In this edition of TriPod Xtras, host Laine Kaplan-Levenson sits down with WWNO’s Janae Pierre to talk about a recent trip to Haiti, the end of TriPod’s second season, and a look at season three. To see photos from Laine’s reporting trip to Haiti, follow TriPod on Instagram at @TriPodnola. You can also tweet your favorite episodes at @tripodnola, and we’ll re-air them this summer, and give you a special shoutout! New TriPod xtras will be released between season 2 and season 3, but on the podcast only, so make sure you subscribe to the TriPod podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

TriPod: New Orleans at 300 returns with a story about a monument that was supposed to be erected in the late 1800s, but never happened. Recently New Orleans has been in the national spotlight over the removal of four city monuments—three statues of confederate war heroes and one monument commemorating the Battle of Liberty Place. These monuments were erected after the end of Reconstruction, years after the Civil War, to reassert white power. But long before these monuments even went up, another monument was supposed to go up —one honoring Reconstruction’s success. But that never happened. I spoke with a guy named Brian Mitchell. He’s an Assistant Professor of history at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, but he’s from New Orleans. He told me about a guy named Oscar James Dunn. Ever heard of him? I hadn’t either. But right around the time Dunn died, a journalist wrote, “There will be three pictures that hang in the home of every African American from that day [the day of Dunn’s

TriPod: New Orleans at 300 returns with another edition of TriPod Xtras. Host Laine Kaplan-Levenson and Dartmouth history professor Rashauna Johnson have talked before for the show. This time, their conversation was taped live during the 2017 Organization of American Historians conference that took place earlier this year. The two discussed Johnson’s first book, Slavery's Metropolis: Unfree Labor in New Orleans during the Age of Revolutions , which won the 2016 Williams Prize for the best book in Louisiana history. It examines slavery in an urban society, and how slavery in New Orleans intersected with the city jail. Here, Laine begins by asking Rashauna why she included the penal system in her award-winning book. TriPod is a production of WWNO, The Historic New Orleans Collection, and the Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies at UNO. You can hear an extended version of this interview on the TriPod podcast, so subscribe to TriPod wherever you get your podcasts.

TriPod: New Orleans at 300 returns with part II of its series on the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment. Listen to Part I here . Last time we left off around 1972 when the New Orleans feminist movement was working to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, which basically said: regardless of sex, there should be equality under the law. Women fighting for this legislation discovered their main stumbling block was other women. The national face of that stumbling block was a woman named Phyllis Schlafly of Illinois. So it’s 1972, the ERA seemed like it would pass, and then came Phyllis. She said this in a 2016 interview with the storytelling platform Makers just before her death: Everybody who was anybody was for the ERA: all the prominent politicians all the way from Ted Kennedy to George Wallace. Three presidents: Nixon, Ford, Carter. She created the ‘STOP ERA’ campaign. S-T-O-P for "Stop Taking Our Privileges." I spoke with Phyllis’s daughter, Anne Schlafly Cori, who is now the chairman

This is the first in a two-part series on the local Second-wave feminist movement and the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment. Listen to Part II here. It’s July 3rd, 1982. Feminists are marching through downtown New Orleans in support of the Equal Rights Amendment, the ERA. WDSU covered this march at the time: Under a scalding afternoon sun, several hundred ERA supporters wound their way from Armstrong Park through the CBD and headed for Jackson Square and a round of speeches with the theme: a new day for the ERA. This march was also a jazz funeral, but it wasn’t for a person. It was for the Equal Rights Amendment. According to WDSU: They decided on a jazz funeral, not to bury the idea, but to praise it. The traditional jazz funeral, they say, starts out in sadness but builds to happiness with the thought of new life. So too, with this jazz funeral. The Equal Rights Amendment had just fallen three states short of being ratified, but these women came out to show they weren’t going to

This is another edition of TriPod Xtras. We’ve cut together some highlights from a really interesting panel we went to a little while back, put on by the Broadmoor Improvement Association and held at Propeller . This event was right up our alley, because it was like a mashup of oral history and community engagement, and gave space for elders to share their experiences alongside folks that are doing work today. This is a sizzler reel-type segment, to get a feel for what the event was like, and catch the moments that made it worth it. The Neighborhood Partnership Network's Timolynn Sans Sumter moderated the conversation, so you’ll hear her first, followed by panelists Moon Landrieu, former mayor of New Orleans and the father of the city’s current Mayor, Mitch Landrieu. Then you’ll hear from former state representative Rosalind Peychaud, followed by Improvement Association board member, Mateal Lawhorn. The group discussed Broadmoor’s past and the potential for its future. TriPod: New

TriPod: New Orleans at 300 returns with a retrospective look at Mardi Gras, and the year that carnival took place in the dark. Hear the TriPod Xtras extended interview with Rien Fertel. Right now, you might not be itching for Mardi Gras, since it just happened and everything, but imagine what it will feel like six months from now when you haven’t caught any beads, or a shoe, or a light up clicky thing, and still have another six months to go. It can be rough. Eddie Smith is a flambeau carrier who’s been toting, as he calls it, for over 20 years. I talked to him at the staging grounds before Muses. He told me that when Mardi Gras is over, he gets disappointed. Flambeau carriers have been part of Mardi Gras history since the 19th century. They carry tall, metal, candelabra-like torches fueled with kerosene that light the night parades. It’s basically like holding a street lamp over your head, a flaming street lamp. It can be hot, exhausting work, but Eddie’s all about it. “ I’m just like

Tripod Xtras feature one on one interviews with special guests. This week’s TriPod episode focuses on Mardi Gras 1946 and the strike of the flambeaux carriers that left the major parades rolling with little to no light at all. This is an extended interview with Rien Fertel, writer, teacher, and historian from Louisiana. Rien just published an article in the Oxford American Magazine that came out in the spring issue, now available online and in print, based on researching the history of flambeaux, interviewing flambeaux carriers, and eventually becoming a carrier himself. TriPod's Laine Kaplan-Levenson sat down with Rien for the TriPod episode on the strike, and he shared some of that story, the history of the flambeaux, and his own story--his lifelong fascination flambeaux and how that fascination became this article, now five years in the making. Subscribe to Tripod in the itunes store or however you get your podcasts and leave us a review. We like to hear from you!

TriPod: New Orleans at 300 returns with part two of its series about one of the largest sales of enslaved people in our country’s history, and an attempt at reconciliation. Listen to Part I here . We left off at the Sold South Panel that took place in New Orleans in December of 2016. The discussion centered around something Georgetown University did in 1838 when the institution sold 272 enslaved people to two plantations in Louisiana to avoid bankruptcy.

TriPod: New Orleans @300 returns with the first in a two-part series about one of the largest sales of enslaved people in our country’s history. In 1838, Jesuits from Georgetown University sold 272 people to Louisiana. Listen to Part II here . We don’t usually start here, but let’s jump up to the Mason-Dixon line for moment. And back up like 200 years. Okay, now zoom in on Georgetown University—the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institute of higher learning in the United States. Starting after the War of 1812, Georgetown Jesuits began rethinking their assets, in particular their human property. For over two decades they debated whether or not they should own slaves. By the 1830s, they were leaning towards no , and they were batting around ideas about how to not have slaves anymore. Adam Rothman, a professor of history at Georgetown, came down to New Orleans for a roundtable discussion on the legacies of Georgetown’s ties to slavery. “They actually considered emancipating their slaves