People long to hear their story told
24th October 2011 · 0 Comments
By Jerome LeDoux
Contributing Writer
Walking away from the gala coming-out book signing party at the Basin Street Station in New Orleans, the clearest thing of all was the eager longing of the people of New Orleans and Faubourg Tremé in particular to see their life story told in print.
Not all of their life, mind you, is in War Of The Pews. But that part of their life pertaining to their extended family as a Faith Community is indeed there in bold form. And more than the story of their life, it is the celebration of their life that rings loud. Hence, the joyous rounds of chatter, song and laughter at the Basin Street Station.
Minus “The Soulful Voices,” the book signing tour de force resumed at the Ashé Cultural Arts Center on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard. A few dozen Tremé lovers and history buffs began with a light lunch, waiting for me to open the floor for discussion.
When I asked whether there were questions of specific interest, the firing line heated up immediately. Apparently, most of the folks there had no knowledge at all about the workings between individual Catholic churches and the Archbishop and his staff. It was a revelation to them that the power structure of the hierarchy is nearly absolute.
Every Catholic diocese/archdiocese is a corporation sole in legal terms, meaning that it owns virtually everything in individual church parishes, and all legal questions and issues must go solely through the diocese/archdiocese. Therefore, any clash between a parish and the archdiocese is legally more lopsided than between David and Goliath.
That the people of historic St. Augustine Church were able to gain any ground in their struggle to remain an open, independent parish depended first on the remarkable status of St. Augustine as the oldest Black Catholic parish in the United States. Atop that, it is situated in Faubourg Tremé, the oldest Black neighborhood in the United States and the most African neighborhood in culture. Credit that to Congo Square, the epicenter of Tremé and onetime freewheeling venue of African slave rituals, log drumming, chants, concentric dancing and storytelling after Sunday church services.
Old and New Testament stories just heard in church were woven by the enslaved Africans into their chants, perhaps partly in French and partly in their native tongues. Astounding lyrics and melodies were thus birthed spontaneously, laying bare to the world for the first time the only art form indigenous to the United States: The Negro Spirituals.
So, The Negro Spirituals/The Holy Blues was the grandmother who gave birth to the daughter, the secular blues, pioneered by local musicians hanging around Congo Square to imbibe and imitate in their gigs the fascinating new sound. Granddaughter jazz, of course, came about as soon as said musicians improvised, riffed and syncopated.
Such questions popped up again the next day at Vera Warren’s Community Book Center signing. This time, the queries and remarks heated up, digging into the foibles and mistakes of the Catholic Church, one of which was the exploitation of slavery.
“True, Europeans and others were slavers,” I told them, “but the institution of slavery did not exist as long as humans were hunters/gatherers. When people began to farm and herd cattle in 9,000 B.C., the demand for human labor started and people turned to slavery for a labor supply. Slavery actually began in Africa among the first humans.”
The next day, Sunday, October 2, we found our way to Le Musee de f.p.c., the Museum For People of Color. Purchased by The New Orleans Tribune newspaper’s publisher, Beverly McKenna, the two-story mansion at 2336 Esplanade Avenue has been renovated into a jewel of a museum whose walls are bedecked with Black history.
Large, luxuriant and rimmed by showy flowers and shrubs, the lawn sported two score literary fans champing at the bit. After finishing the book signings, I wandered onto the lawn to face the awaiting tigers who had raw meat in their sights. They threw bombs ranging from dithering bishops to women priests to a laity bereft of power.
An FAB book signing at Frenchman and Chartres streets was sparse and tame. A McKeown’s Books signing was small but fiery, as was a Maple Street Book Shop signing. Backed by the St. Augustine Church Soulful Voices, Jerome Smith’s Tremé Community Center concluded with a crosscut flourish of folks from various places.
This article was originally published in the October 24, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper
