City History: New Orleans

2.2: Congo Square

November 21, 2025·33 min
Episode Description from the Publisher

The enslaved of New Orleans make music and dance together at the city's edge. This is the story of Congo Square: the people who gathered there every Sunday—and the African culture they kept alive.Listen to "Tan Patate-La Tchuite" by Adelaide Van Wey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F8jFIbCD1oLEARN MORE:Congo Square: African Roots in New Orleans by Freddi Williams EvansCongo Square in New Orleans by Jerah Johnson“A Window on Slave Culture: Dances at Congo Square in NewOrleans, 1800-1862” by Gary A. DonaldsonThe World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square by Ned SubletteCity of a Million Dreams: New Orleans at 300 by Jason BerryThe Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans by Lawrence N. Powell“African Cultural Memory in New Orleans Music” by Jason Berry“Deep Skin: Reconstructing Congo Square” by Joseph R. Roach“New Orleans Music as a Circulatory System” by Matt Sakakeeny“The Invention of a Memory: Congo Square and African Music in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans” by Ted WidmerSinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War by Dena J. Epsteinhttps://antigravitymagazine.com/feature/sacred-ground/SOUNDS:French Quarter Bourbon walk.wav by volivieri --https://freesound.org/s/110012/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

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