Episode 1
Plantations & Petrochemicals on the Great River Road
This episode introduces our project & the guiding concepts of:
past, present, & future
oppression & survival
historical preservation & what it means to “preserve” a plantation
labor histories & examples of cross-race, cross-ethnicity collaboration
the human cost of Louisiana’s economic progress
66-99% of industrially-purposed land is perpetually tax exempt in the state of Louisiana.
Article: Democracy Now!
August 30, 2021. ANTONIA JUHASZ & AMY GOODMAN.
“Hurricane Ida Hits Oil Industry in Black & Native Communities on Louisiana Coast Amid Climate Crisis.”
For the history of New Orleans Tourism:
Gotham, Kevin Fox. “Authenticity in Black and White: The Rise of Tourism in the Twentieth Century.” In Authentic New Orleans: Tourism, Culture and Race in the Big Easy, 69-94. New York: NYU Press, 2007. Read on Project MUSE
Stanonis, Anthony. Creating the Big Easy: New Orleans and the Emergence of Modern Tourism, 1918-1945. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006. Read on Project MUSE
Black and African-American History in South Louisiana:
Fairclough, Adam. Race & Democracy: The Civil Rights Struggle in Louisiana, 1915-1972. Athens & London: The University of Georgia Press, 1995. Buy from UGA Press
Rogers, Kim Lacy. Righteous Lives: Narratives of the New Orleans Civil Rights Movement. New York: NYU Press, 1993. Buy from NYU Press
Somers, Dale A. “Black and White in New Orleans: A Study in Urban Race Relations, 1865 - 1900,” The Journal of Southern History 40, No. 1. (February 1974): 19-42. Read on JSTOR
Vincent, Charles. “’Of Such Historical Importance…’: The African American Experience in Louisiana.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 50. No. 2. (Spring 2009): 133-158. Read on JSTOR
For academic scholarship on plantation museums:
Brundage, Fitzhugh. “Exhibiting Southernness in a New Century.” In Southern Past: A Clash of Race and Memory, 183-226. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008. Google Books
Eichstedt, Jennifer L., and Stephen Small. Representations of Slavery: Race and Ideology in Southern Plantation Museums. Washington DC: Smithsonian Books, 2002. Buy from Penguin Random House
Johnson, Erik. “Slavery, Tourism, and Memory in New Orleans’ ‘Plantation Country.’” Africa Today 65, No. 4. (Summer 2019): 101-118. Read on Project MUSE
For the history of South Louisiana environmentalism & environmental justice:
Colten, Craig E. “Too Much of a Good Thing: Industrial Pollution in the Lower Mississippi River.” In Transforming New Orleans & Its Environs, 141-159. Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000. Read on JSTOR
Leonard, Richard and Zack Nauth. “Beating BASF: OCAW Busts Union-Buster.” Labor Research Review 1. No. 16. (1990): 34-49. Read at Cornell.edu
Markowitz, Gerald and David Rosner. “Ol’ Man River or Cancer Alley?” In Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. Buy from UC Press
Singer, Merrill. “Down Cancer Alley: The Lived Experience of Health and Environmental Suffering in Louisiana’s Chemical Corridor.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 25. No. 2. (June 2011): 141-163. Read on JSTOR