Collection:LPB

Genre: Newsmagazine

Place Covered: New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana

Copyright Holder: Louisiana Educational Television Authority

Date Issued: 2009-02-06

Duration: 00:08:03

Subjects: Treme (New Orleans, La.) | Free blacks | Democracy | Race | African Americans | Documentary films | Civil Rights | Civil War | Elie, Lolis Eric

Contributors:

• Whinham, Charlie Host
• Sanford, Shauna Host
• Elie, Lolis Interviewee

This segment from the February 6, 2009, episode of the series “Louisiana: The State We’re In” features an on-set interview with Lolis Elie, the co-director and writer of the documentary “Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans.” Charlie Whinham and Shauna Sanford talk to Elie about: the history of the Faubourg Treme neighborhood in New Orleans, one of the largest communities of free people of color in the South in the 19th century; his view that Faubourg Treme represents the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement because the community was fighting to be a part of the American democracy before the Civil War; how he became interested in Faubourg Treme; the importance of the documentary in giving a voice to the community itself; and his hope that viewers will have a better understanding of the community’s fight for a race-blind democracy.