The City of New Orleans has been long referred to as “The Big Easy,” but since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city and its inhabitants, that “Easy” has been hard to come by. Fighting to regain normalcy, the city and its residents were forced to reconfigure some of the longstanding New Orleans traditions since the devastation left after Katrina. As part of our episode this storied city, we looked at one church’s unorthodox response to the city’s continual violence.

New Orleans and its residents continue to fall victim to unnecessary deaths, adding to the toll of a city’s depredation. Sadly, murder victims have been framed as statistics, especially in high crime cities. Father Bill Terry grew tired of the apathetic way in which these victims were regarded, so he decided to do something about it. He found a way to bring caring back into the equation by humanizing these victims through his New Orleans Murder Board.

For links to Father Terry’s church and additional stories of New Orleans from Al, visit our episode page.

Some causes are worth painting oneself gold for . . .

Robert Fogarty of Evacuteer.org in his golden get-up, courtesy of themagicbucket.org

At least, that’s Robert Fogarty’s line of thinking. You might remember him from SOTRU’s NOLA episode; he’s among the bright, energetic young folks who’ve enthusiastically made New Orleans their home in the years post-Hurricane Katrina. Well, in addition to his unorthodox business Dear New Orleans, Robert is the founder of Evacuteer.org. What’s that and how does it all add up to gold body paint? That’s got a bit of a story attached. (more…)

Sadly, murder victims have been framed as statistics, especially in high crime cities. Father Bill Terry decided to do something about it and found a simple way to humanize these victims.

Visit our New Orleans page to listen to the Murder Board segment in our full hour radio episode or for further information about what we found in the Big Easy.

Big Freedia and Katey Red in the Third Ward of New Orleans; photo courtesy of Lyle Ashton Harris for the New York Times

For those of you who enjoyed State of the Re:Union’s story on Bounce music in our New Orleans episode– and the gay and transgender rappers who are the genre’s growing stars– check out the new feature about it from the New York Times! And if you haven’t heard SOTRU’s take, be sure to give a listen (it’s in Segment C!)… You’ll be poppin’ in no time…

Going Above and Beyond for the Local Music Community

For the Record: The Louisiana Music Factory

Sounds of the Re:Union visits the Louisiana Music Factory, a New Orleans record store that goes above and beyond to serve their local music community. From in-store performances to an extensive selection of local artists CDs, no one nurtures NOLA musicians like LMF. Host Brenton Crozier speaks with owner Barry Smith, as well as musicians Cyril Neville and Kermit Ruffins about the impact LMF has on the community.

(more…)

It was only weeks after the SOTRU team was in New Orleans that the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico began sending millions of gallons of oil on a slow creep towards the Louisiana shore. We spent much of our time in the Crescent City talking to people about the slow, painstaking work of recovery from the winds and floods of Hurricane Katrina—and here they are, facing another natural disaster. (more…)

Listen to the episode and check out our video documentary, podcasts, images and articles on New Orleans!

If you’ve listened to our NOLA episode, we want to hear from you. Please tell us what you liked, what you didn’t like and what you thought we could have done differently. The SOTRU team appreciates your feedback!

It’s a Sunday afternoon in New Orleans, and we’re stuck in traffic on an ordinary street in the Central City neighborhood. The reason? We made the mistake of trying to drive through the route of a second line. For all the fame of the city’s parades around Mardi Gras, New Orleans residents take to the streets every weekend for a good chunk of the year to second line… yes, it’s both a noun and a verb. Second lines stem from the city’s jazz funeral tradition: the main line is made up of the somber mourners; the second line is the folks following behind—celebrating and dancing. (more…)