Maurice Carlos Ruffin has an uncanny ability to reveal the hidden corners of a place we thought we knew. These perspectival, character-driven stories center on the margins and are deeply rooted in New Orleanian culture. In “Beg Borrow Steal”, a boy relishes time spent helping his father find work after coming home from prison; in “Ghetto University”, a couple struggling financially turns to crime after hitting rock bottom; in “Before I Let Go”, a woman who’s been in NOLA for generations fights to keep her home; in “Fast Hands, Fast Feet”, an army vet and a runaway teen find companionship while sleeping under a bridge; in “Mercury Forges”, a flash fiction piece among several in the collection, a group of men hurriedly make their way to an elderly gentleman’s home, trying to reach him before the water from Hurricane Katrina does; and in the title story, a young man works the street corners of the French Quarter, trying to achieve a freedom not meant for him.

Disease is thought to be a great leveler of humanity, but in antebellum New Orleans acquiring immunity from the scourge of yellow fever magnified the brutal inequities of slave-powered capitalism. Antebellum New Orleans sat at the heart of America’s slave and cotton kingdoms. It was also where yellow fever epidemics killed as many as 150,000 people during the nineteenth century. With little understanding of mosquito-borne viruses—and meager public health infrastructure—a person’s only protection against the scourge was to “get acclimated” by surviving the disease. About half of those who contracted yellow fever died. Repeated epidemics bolstered New Orleans’s strict racial hierarchy by introducing another hierarchy, what Kathryn Olivarius terms “immunocapital.” As this highly original analysis shows, white survivors could leverage their immunity as evidence that they had paid their biological dues and could then pursue economic and political advancement. For enslaved Blacks, the story was different. Immunity protected them from yellow fever, but as embodied capital, they saw the social and monetary value of their acclimation accrue to their white owners. Whereas immunity conferred opportunity and privilege on whites, it relegated enslaved people to the most grueling labor. The question of good health—who has it, who doesn’t, and why—is always in part political. Necropolis shows how powerful nineteenth-century white Orleanians—all allegedly immune—pushed this politics to the extreme. They constructed a society that capitalized mortal risk and equated perceived immunity with creditworthiness and reliability. Instead of trying to curb yellow fever through sanitation or quarantines, immune white Orleanians took advantage of the chaos disease caused. Immunological discrimination therefore became one more form of bias in a society premised on inequality, one more channel by which capital disciplined and divided the population. - Publisher

Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly erotic, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force - a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses. It is a novel only Anne Rice could write.

When a Chinese-American family travels from California to Mississippi to visit the grave of their ancestors, they stumble upon surprising revelations. Along the way, they meet a diverse group of local residents and historians, who shed light on the racially complex history of the early Chinese in the segregated South. Their emotional journey also leads them to discover how the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 impacted their family and how deep their roots run in America.

Reissued for the first time in over thirty years, Black New Orleans explores the twenty-year period in which the city’s black population more than doubled. Meticulously researched and replete with archival illustrations from newspapers and rare periodicals, John W. Blassingame’s groundbreaking history offers a unique look at the economic and social life of black people in New Orleans during Reconstruction. Not a conventional political treatment, Blassingame’s history instead emphasizes the educational, religious, cultural, and economic activities of African Americans during the late nineteenth century. “Blending historical and sociological perspectives, and drawing with skill and imagination upon a variety of sources, [Blassingame] offers fresh insights into an oft-studied period of Southern history. . . . In both time and place the author has chosen an extraordinarily revealing vantage point from which to view his subject. ”—Neil R. McMillen, American Historical Review

Through vintage photos and films, historical re-creations and filming of modern-day jazz funerals, the documentary traces the evolution of the tradition — and the city — from the late 18th century to today, from the African rhythms and ring dances of Congo Square, European marching bands, Sicilian brass bands and early 20th-century jazz musicians to the present-day’s rollicking processions. - Jason Berry

In 2015, the beautiful jazz funeral in New Orleans for composer Allen Toussaint coincided with a debate over removing four Confederate monuments. Mayor Mitch Landrieu led the ceremony, attended by living legends of jazz, music aficionados, politicians, and everyday people. The scene captured the history and culture of the city in microcosm--a city legendary for its noisy, complicated, tradition-rich splendor. In , Jason Berry delivers a character-driven history of New Orleans at its tricentennial. Chronicling cycles of invention, struggle, death, and rebirth, Berry reveals the city's survival as a triumph of diversity, its map-of-the-world neighborhoods marked by resilience despite hurricanes, epidemics, fires, and floods. Berry orchestrates a parade of vibrant personalities, from the founder Bienville, a warrior emblazoned with snake tattoos; to Governor William C. C. Claiborne, General Andrew Jackson, and Pere Antoine, an influential priest and secret agent of the Inquisition; Sister Gertrude Morgan, a street evangelist and visionary artist of the 1960s; and Michael White, the famous clarinetist who remade his life after losing everything in Hurricane Katrina. The textured profiles of this extraordinary cast furnish a dramatic narrative of the beloved city, famous the world over for mysterious rituals as people dance when they bury their dead.

As a Korean-American man raised in the Louisiana bayou works hard to make a life for his family, he must confront the ghosts of his past as he discovers that he could be deported from the only country he has ever called home.

Larry Shirt is a taxi driver whose passengers are the city's hustlers, tourists, socialites, musicians, housekeepers, weirdos and reporters. Bobby Cohn, a college student home from school and in the middle of a personal crisis, is one of those passengers. The circumstances that bring them together lead to a bond that is ultimately turned upside down by Hurricane Katrina, but instilled by the love of the city that they both call home.

A documentary about a survivor of Hurricane Katrina. Carolyn Parker, a survivor of Hurricane Katrina, is determined to rebuild her life, even if it takes everything she has.

The Roots of Music's Marching Crusaders and their journey from post-Katrina New Orleans to Pasadena, California to march in the 2013 Tournament of Roses Parade. From the practices, to the fund raising, to the bus ride, to the climactic march down Colorado Blvd., we follow the bands experience as it makes history as the only middle school aged band to play in the parade.

New Orleans is like no other city in the US. Proud of its French past, its heart beats to the rhythm of jazz - the city even gave its name to a specific style of jazz. Follows musicians who have become a symbol of the city's new musical tradition as they tell of the scars of a community deeply wounded by hurricane Katrina and of the way its individual members try to overcome the trauma. - Amazon

Shortly after Hurricane Katrina, filmmakers Lucia Small and Ed Pincus embark upon a sixty-day road trip traveling from their native New England to Louisiana. On their journey they encounter those displaced by the disaster. The film elegantly tackles the difficult issues of race, class and civic responsibility in the United States today.

A son seeking to fulfill his late father’s dream takes his band from the storied city of New Orleans to the shores of Cuba, where — through the universal language of music — dark and ancient connections between their peoples reveal the roots of jazz.

Follow the men and women who keep the citizens of New Orleans safe during the night. Ride along with the police officers, the firefighters, and the paramedics as they tackle the evils of the night.