Interdisciplinary Studies

During its five-season HBO run, David Simon and Ed Burns's serial drama The Wire inspired superlative praise from critics and scholars alike. As Nicholas Kulish wrote on the New York Times opinion page, " if Charles Dickens were alive today, he would watch 'The Wire,' unless, that is, he was already writing for it. " 1 The Wire's critical success is not hard to understand. The focused themes of each season — police, unions, politics, schools, and media — give the show an intellectual arc that appeals to media scholars and critics. The show is equally entertaining, with individual episodes impressively shot, filled with well-written dialogue, strongly developed characters, and generally evincing an entertainment value that rivals the best and most compelling of police procedural dramas. For those on the progressive and labor left, the show has developed a cult status as well, both because of its aforementioned qualities — indeed, the show's popularity among those of us who consider ourselves progressives cannot be divorced from the fact that it is good, solid entertainment — and its astute analyses of modern American politics, economics, and racism. The show's gritty depiction of the modern deindustrialized city, its unabashed criticism of neoliberal disinvestment in social programs, and general disdain for identity politics has driven it to almost mythic status among many progressive thinkers. At the same time, The Wire often evinced nostalgia for a past of unionized jobs, government that works, and a more economically and socially functional version of the urban experience that appeals to critics of the post-1970s right turn in American politics, economics, and social life. The Wire's analysis of the interrelationships among the state, market capitalism , labor, racism, and the urban environment rivals that of many academic experts and certainly has gained a larger audience and a longer reach. The show has inspired overwhelmingly popular courses at universities around the country and a host of high-powered and well-publicized academic conferences. For evidence of its growing Labor Published by Duke University Press

How do we do justice to the centuries of history that have unfolded on these 350 square miles of land surrounding the Mississippi River? What is the relationship between this diverse history, its reflection in our city's officially named spaces and places, and the values we strive to enact as a community? This report, prepared with the input of more than forty of the city's leading scholars and writers, themselves drawing on more than a century of the most cutting-edge historical and cultural interpretation, offers no definitive answers to these questions. We have been guided throughout though by the conviction that asking these questions, developing a collaborative process, telling the multitudinous stories contained in this report, and reconsecrating some of the spaces in this city is an imperative as New Orleans enters its fourth century of existence as a city. The collective 111 suggestions for renaming streets and parks below makes no claim toward being a definitive history of the city. For every musical innovator like Jelly Roll Morton, Mahalia Jackson, or Mac Rebennack included there is a Bunk Johnson, Emma Jackson, Ernie K-Doe and countless others who have been left out. The four individuals included who fled the men who owned them as slaves near present-day Lakeview are but four of the thousands in this city's history whose collective individual actions over centuries forced a reluctant nation to finally begin to live up to its highest ideals. The rolls of the First Louisiana Native Guard of the U.S. Army who defended the city from a treasonous insurrection and the members of the Metropolitan Police who held off an attempted coup in 1874 are filled with men whose lives are as heroic and poetic as those of Andre Cailloux, James Ingraham, and Rodolphe Desdunes. We are blessed to live in a place where our neighbors include countless unassuming heroes like Julia Aaron, whose willingness to put her body on the line brought the promise of freedom that much closer to reality; or Sherwood Gagliano, who sounded an early alarm on the greatest existential threat this city has ever faced. In recommending each name for each street, place, or park we have followed several key themes; offering a coherent reordering of spatial naming in keeping with the patterns currently in place, while allowing for the exploration of individual narratives which expand upon the range of historical figures recognized and honored for their roles in shaping our city. The four streets in present day Lakeview named for leaders of the 1861-1865 treason against the United States were all dedicated as part of an explicit attempt to rewrite this history of treason and defy the 14 th and 15 th Amendments to the US Constitution via segregation and disenfranchisement. In their place we have offered three alternative sets of names, each set thematically linked: one set of military leaders that helped put down that treason and via their very presence as officers transformed the meaning of the war; one set of slaves who attempted to self-emancipate and had a connection to present-day Lakeview; and one set of musicians.