About this episode

The episode discusses the decline of Congo Square in New Orleans, including the banning of African dances and the transformation of the space into a whites-only park.

New Orleans becomes hostile to Congo Square. The African dances are banned. The space falls into disrepair, then becomes a whites-only park. Against all odds, it fights for its original identity. LEARN MORE: Congo Square: African Roots in New Orleans by Freddi Williams Evans Congo Square in New Orleans by Jerah Johnson “A Window on Slave Culture: Dances at Congo Square in New Orleans, 1800-1862” by Gary A. Donaldson The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square by Ned Sublette City of a Million Dreams: New Orleans at 300 by Jason Berry The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans by Lawrence N. Powell “African Cultural Memory in New Orleans Music” by Jason Berry “Deep Skin: Reconstructing Congo Square” by Joseph R. Roach “New Orleans Music as a Circulatory System” by Matt Sakakeeny “The Invention of a Memory: Congo Square and African Music in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans” by Ted Widmer Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War by Dena J. Epstein https://antigravitymagazine.com/feature/sacred-ground/ https://chrisdier.com/2015/03/10/raquette-the-lost-sport-of-new-orleans/ SOUNDS: French Quarter Bourbon walk.wav by volivieri…

More episodes of City History: New Orleans

• 2.5: The 1832 Cholera Pandemic · April 3, 2026 · 52 min
• 2.3: How Congo Square Survived · January 3, 2026 · 22 min
• 2.2: Congo Square · November 20, 2025 · 33 min
• 2.1: Congo Plains · September 30, 2025 · 25 min
• 1.31: Why the Battle of New Orleans Mattered · July 7, 2025 · 34 min
• 1.30: The Goodbye Look · June 4, 2025 · 23 min

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