Kathy Anderson
Pretty much everyone is at least aware of the New Orleans funeral procession tradition—a bizarre yet joyful affair wherein the friends and family of the deceased dance and play music in the streets. According to author and New Orleans native Jason Berry, however, the reasons behind the marches are anything but simple and have never been researched to any great effect. In his new book, City of a Million Dreams: New Orleans at Year 300, Berry, a historian, former journalist and author of nine other books, digs into the deepest, oldest history of the famous city and its customs, cutting a fascinating tale that begins in a swamp those hundreds of years ago and brings us up to today. As we speak, he's also working on a documentary version of the story, but Berry stops by for a reading at op.cit books this weekend (2 pm Saturday Sept. 28. Free. 157 Paseo de Peralta, 428-0321).
What exactly is with you and New Orleans, Berry?
When you are raised in a town where the grownups wear masks and dance in the streets, it plants an optimism for the human experiment. New Orleans was a magical place to be be a kid. This place has a deep pull for me, and when I got into the research on jazz funerals and the African American culture of the town, it was like going into an exotic country that happened to be located in the city where I lived. New Orleans has epic problems—the city is sinking, we're prone to hurricanes and, of course, there's poverty, but it's also a place that almost stands outside of time. It's a profoundly spiritual terrain where many of the carnival traditions, and particularly the burial customs, are reaching for another world, a different way of living, a different way of thinking.
Is there some kind of moral to the book? Something about the indomitable spirit of humankind?
Yes! It I'll take that! The argument of the book is that the beguiling personality of this city has been shapes by long tension with many clashes between culture and the law. The African American legacy of public dancing and how the parading tradition kept colliding with French and Spanish strictures forced a change in the mores and folkways of the town. And that's to take nothing away from the grandeur of the French architecture or the melding of the French and Spanish customs with African cooking and what is now such a world-renowned culinary city, but I've been enamored over the years by the ways culture has pushed against the law. We're going through a crisis in America about what constitutes identity, and … even though it has the image of being a hard partying, good times town—which is pretty well-deserved—I've spent enough time there and know enough about the city so that the history I wrote is not a conventional chronicle of generals and politicians and great or lesser economic moments … I'm much more curious about how these disparate people, this crossroads of humanity, managed to create a place and a sensibility that is unlike any other in the country.
Say you had to pick some favorite fact from your research. Anything stand out?
Absolutely! The chapter that was an utter epiphany for me comes toward the end, and it's a character-driven narrative. I wanted three-dimensional profiles of people across time whose lives held a mirror to what the city was like, and the one who really entranced me was Sister Gertrude Morgan. She's a renowned outsider artist, her work commands substantial fees, is in many museums. I was really struck by this African American woman who believed herself to be a bride of Christ and was a mystic whose paintings include these pencil written lines from scripture that reflect her spiritual journey. As she was flowering artistically, the Freedom Riders were clashing with cops in New Orleans, the police were exacting bribes from gay bars to not beat people up and it was illegal for black and white musicians to play in the same band. All this political and social tension was rising as she put out this striking series of works that today hang in museums and private collections. I guess her story taught me so much about the way in which this bohemian culture eventually grew into what we might today call [the arts] industry.
