A New Orleans jazz hall and its history in the fight for Black freedom
"Preservation Hall Brass Band," by Alan Flattmann (www.alanflattmann.com) In 1857, in a decree that flouted Louisiana case law that allowed white men to free their enslaved children, paramours and common-law wives, the Louisiana legislature voted that slavery could no longer be reversed. It was one more tightening of the screws by plantation interests against Blacks as the legislature grew more polarized over the slave economy. In 1858, New Orleans closed an African Methodist Episcopal church after police raids for “unlawful assembly” of enslaved and free Blacks. The city of 116,000, the ...
Source: americamagazine.org