Black New Orleans: History x Art x Narrative (VIDEO)
In December, Taller Electric Marronage, Keywords for Black Louisiana, The Space for Creative Black Imagination, and the JHU Center for Africana Studies hosted a conversation on doing history, art, and storytelling as the world burns down. #BlackNewOrleans
Cierra Chenier is a writer, creator, and historian born and raised in New Orleans. Driven by her love for her city, enabled by Black Studies, and cultural memory as a native New Orleanian, she created NOIR 'N NOLA—a digital platform "preserving the history, culture, and soul of Black New Orleans." Previous topics include gentrification post-Hurricane Katrina, Robert Charles and the New Orleans Race Riots, the Louisiana Tignon Laws of 1786, Voodoo queen Marie Laveau, and maroon leader Jean Saint Malo. She has provided her voice for esteemed creative projects, interviews, and is a resource for Black New Orleans history, thought, and writing. Currently, Chenier is in a research period and upcoming projects are further supported as a 2021 recipient of the Foundation for Louisiana's World Makers Awards.
Mona Lisa Saloy, Ph.D., the new Louisiana Poet Laureate is an award-winning author & folklorist, educator, and scholar of Creole culture in articles, documentaries, and poems about Black New Orleans before and after Katrina. Currently, Conrad N. Hilton Endowed Professor and of English at Dillard University, Dr. Saloy documents Creole culture in sidewalk songs, jump-rope rhymes, and clap-hand games to discuss the importance of play. She writes on the significance of the Black Beat poets--especially Bob Kaufman, on the African American Toasting Tradition, Black talk, and on keeping Creole to today. Her first book, Red Beans & Ricely Yours, won the T.S. Eliot Prize and the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award. Her collection of poems, Second Line Home, captures New Orleans speech, family dynamics, celebrates New Orleans, the unique culture the world loves. Saloy’s screenplay for the documentary Easter Rock premiered in Paris, the Ethnograph Film Festival & at the national Black museum. She's lectured on Black Creole Culture at Poets House-NYC; the Smithsonian; Purdue University; the University of Washington; and Woodland Patterns Book Center. Her documentary, Bleu Orleans, is on Black Creole Culture. She is an editorial reviewer for Meridians: Feminism, race, transnationalism. Her recent publications of verse: “New Orleans, a Neighborhood Nation.” I am New Orleans, anthology. Kalamu ya Salaam, editor. University of New Orleans Press, 2021; and in the newest Chicago Quarterly Review, Vol. 33, Anthology of Black American Literature. Mona Lisa Saloy writes for those who don’t or can’t tell Black Creole cultural stories. www.monalisasaloy.com Tweet to @redbeansista & @MonaLisaSaloy
Kristina Kay Robinson is a writer and visual artist born and raised in New Orleans. Robinson is the coeditor of Mixed Company, a collection of short fiction and visual narratives. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, the Baffler, the Nation, Art in America, and Elle, among other outlets. She is a 2019 recipient of the Rabkin Prize for Visual Arts Journalism. Currently, she serves as the New Orleans editor at large for Burnaway magazine.
Hosted by Jessica Marie Johnson & Moderated by Kelsey Moore
This event was free, but if you feel moved, these are some New Orleans or Gulf Coast-based organizations who would love your support.
Tekrema Center for Art and Culture: https://www.facebook.com/tekremacenter/
Creative Alliance of New Orleans: https://cano-la.org/donate/
Ida Relief for Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/ida-relief-for-pointeauchien-indian-tribe
Congo Square Preservation Society: https://www.congosquarepreservationsociety.org/donate.html
Support us by supporting them!