A Girl Stands at the Door: The Generation of Young Women Who Desegregated America's Schools
by Rachel Devlin
The struggle to desegregate America's schools was a grassroots movement, and young women were its vanguard. In the late 1940s, parents began to file desegregation lawsuits with their daughters, forcing Thurgood Marshall and other civil rights lawyers to take up the issue and bring it to the Supreme Court. After the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, girls far outnumbered boys in volunteering to desegregate formerly all-white schools.
In A Girl Stands at the Door, historian Rachel Devlin tells the remarkable stories of these desegregation pioneers. She also explains why black girls were seen, and saw themselves, as responsible for the difficult work of reaching across the color line in public schools. Highlighting the extraordinary bravery of young black women, this bold revisionist account illuminates today's ongoing struggles for equality.
A Life in Jazz
by Danny Barker
A vivid memoir by legendary New Orleans guitarist and mentor Danny Baker, this book offers firsthand insight into the evolution of jazz and the lived experience of segregation-era musicians. Barker reflects on how jazz culture formed within African-American communities and how musicians navigated discrimination and social change across decades. His storytelling captures both the creative vitality of New Orleans music and the injustices shaping mid-century Black life.
Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons
by Brian Barson
This historical study links jazz's emergence to earlier political struggles across the Caribbean and the Americas. It argues that New Orleans brass band traditions developed alongside movements for freedom and democratic participation.
How the Word is Passed
by Clint Smith
A widely acclaimed exploration of how Americans remember slavery. Smith visits Whitney Plantation - one of the few historic sites focused primarily on the experiences of enslaved people. Smith examines how narratives of freedom and injustice are constructed in public memory.
Louisiana Rocks!: The True Genesis of Rock and Roll
by Tom Aswell
This nonfiction history argues that rock and roll's true origins lie in Louisiana, especially in New Orleans, beginning in the late 1940s. The book traces the rise of rhythm & blues, local recording studios, performers, and nightlife venues that helped shape the new sound that would later be labeled "rock and roll". Within this broader narrative, Aswell discusses the Dep Drop Inn as a pivotal performance and cultural hub in segregated New Orleans. The venue is portrayed as a central stop on the Black touring circuit where merging R&B and rock performers played, socialized, and developed their styles, helping make the club one of the city's most influential incubators of postway rhythm & blues.
Preservation Hall
by Eve Abrams and Shannon Brinkman
Preservation Hall, located in the French Quarter just three blocks from the Mississippi River, remains an icon of New Orleans and an essential stop for all fans of traditional jazz. Since the early 1960s "The Hall" has served as a sanctuary for the Crescent City's rich and illustrious jazz heritage, a haven for players, and an incubator for successive generations of jazz musicians. In their rare behind-the-scenes portrait, New Orleans photographer Shannon Brinkman and audio documentarian Eve Abrams capture the rhythm and cool of this historic club with both a pulsating array of images and the heartfelt words of band members.
Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America's Journey from Slavery to Segregation
by Steve Luxenberg
This major modern narrative history reconstructs the world around Homer Plessy, including the Citizens Committee that selected him to challenge segregation laws and the broader political aftermath of the case. The book situates the 1896 ruling within the unfinished struggles following Reconstruction and shows how segregation became entrenched in American life.
Song for My Fathers: A New Orleans Story in Black and White
by Tom Sancton
A memoir about a white teenager in the 1950s learning jazz from older Black musicians during segregation. This book explores interracial mentorship, musical transmission, and how jazz communities intersected with the broader civil rights movement.
The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld
by Herbert Asbury
Home to the notorious "Blue Book," which listed the names and addresses of every prostitute living in the city, New Orleans's infamous red-light district gained a reputation as one of the most raucous in the world. But the New Orleans underworld consisted of much more than the local bordellos. It was also well known as the early gambling capital of the United States, and sported one of the most violent records of street crime in the country. In The French Quarter, Herbert Asbury, author of The Gangs of New York, chronicles this rather immense underbelly of "The Big Easy." From the murderous exploits of Mary Jane "Bricktop" Jackson and Bridget Fury, two prostitutes who became famous after murdering a number of their associates, to the faux-revolutionary "filibusters" who, backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars of public support—though without official governmental approval—undertook military missions to take over the bordering Spanish regions in Texas, the French Quarter had it all. Once again, Asbury takes the reader on an intriguing, photograph-filled journey through a unique version of the American underworld.
War of the Pews: A Personal Account of St. Augustine Church in New Orleans
by Jerome G. LeDoux
This memoir-history by longtime pastor Fr. Jerome LeDoux recounts the struggle to save historic St. Augustine Catholic Church in Tremé after Hurricane Katrina, when plans were announced to close the parish. Blending firsthand narrative with historical reflection, the book describes how parishioners organized protests, vigils, and preservation efforts to keep one of the nation's oldest Black Catholic congregations alive. It also traces the church's broader significance in New Orleans, from its founding by free people of color in the 19th century through its role in civil-rights activism, neighborhood identity, and the cultural life of Tremé.
Why New Orleans Matters
by Tom Piazza
In the aftermath of Katrina and the disaster that followed, promises were made, forgotten, and renewed. Now what will become of New Orleans in the years ahead? What do this proud, battered city and its people mean to America and the world?
Award-winning author and longtime New Orleans resident Tom Piazza illuminates the storied culture and uncertain future of this great and neglected American metropolis by evoking the sensuous rapture of the city that gave us jazz music and Creole cooking; examining its deep undercurrents of corruption, racism, and injustice; and explaining how its people endure and transcend those conditions. And, perhaps most important, he asks us all to consider the spirit of this place and all the things it has shared with the world: its grace and beauty, resilience and soul.
