This panel examines Reconstruction in New Orleans through the lens of Black political agency, exploring how African-descended communities navigated the legal and social upheavals that followed the end of slavery. The papers foreground the lived experience of Reconstruction, showing how Black political life unfolded through memory, family, gender, and struggles over legitimacy and citizenship.

Jari C. Honora’s paper opens the session by examining Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez, the New Orleans physician and free man of color who founded two radical newspapers during the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, including The New Orleans Tribune, America’s first Black daily newspaper. By tracing how Roudanez and his Creole of Color compatriots were later obscured from public memory, Honora frames Reconstruction as what Rodolphe-Lucien Desdunes called “a forgotten phase” in history.

Kendric Perkins’ paper uses the life and legislative vision of Ernest C. Morphy as a microhistorical case study to examine how multigenerational family experiences shaped Black political strategies during Reconstruction. Centering Morphy and his relatives, the paper argues that his 1871 family legislation reveals the stakes of expanding the legal meaning of family, especially where the law threatened to recognize cross-racial unions.

Dr. Brian Mitchell’s paper shifts attention to Ellen Boyd Dunn, widow of Lt. Governor Oscar James Dunn, the nation’s first elected Black lieutenant governor. By examining her life and legacy, Mitchell reveals how Black women shaped Reconstruction-era political worlds from positions often hidden from formal political narratives. Ellen Boyd Dunn’s life offers a behind-the-scenes view of Reconstruction intrigue and challenges long-held assumptions about women’s political influence in the period.

Together, these papers offer a layered view of Reconstruction politics in New Orleans and the struggles over belonging that shaped its memory.