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❖ 3 ❖ OUTSIDERS IN NEW ORLEANS After the hard times in New York and California, New Orleans offered a slower, more comfortable way of life. Jon and Louise had friends there and were happy to settle into life in the Big Easy. More than any other city, this was home. It was not without problems, however. Like much of America, New Orleans at midcentury was racially segregated, and the intersection between blacks and whites was often uneasy. In the Quarter, the broad expanse of Canal Street had long been considered neutral ground, with people of color living on one side, whites on the other. Bourbon Street was racially mixed, and Louise thought that the blacks seemed fearful of the whites. Regardless of this tension, she said, “I used to walk around any hour of the night. We used to walk around, Jon and I. We’d go into the black clubs and listen to music.” One Christmas Eve in the 1950s, Jon told Louise that he wanted to wish their friend, singer Joe Hart, a merry Christmas. Louise remembered , years later, that Hart was a big man, adding,“Oh, could he sing ‘Summertime.’” Hart was also an African American and a drinker and that meant that the Webbs had to visit bars in black neighborhoods if they were to find him. Louise dressed in black satin as the two prepared for a night on the town. It was early evening when they began their search, checking bar after bar with no luck. Sometime after dark, they found themselves, weary, on Rampart Street, where they tried again. “You wait out here, honey,” Jon said, going inside the bar. Before long, Louise heard Jon say,“Merry Christmas!”Jon soon returned with Hart, who wanted to say hello to Louise. Moments later, a white police officer came up beside them and thumped Hart’s shoulder with his billy club. Jon became angry and confronted the officer. “What’s it to you?” the policeman asked. Jon answered that Hart was his friend. Louise later remembered that “he got mad, the cop. And of course Joe, he’s just standing there, scared to death. And me, I don’t know what the hell is going on. Jon had his own ideas.” “He didn’t do anything to us,” Jon said. “We came to wish him a merry 42 ❖ Outsiders in New Orleans ❖ Christmas.” The situation quickly deteriorated, and the officer called for a paddy wagon and ordered Hart inside. When Jon protested, he, too, was arrested . Louise, now alone and frightened, asked, “Can I go, too?” “Yeah, you get in, too,” the officer told her. The three were taken to the police station and booked. As part of the routine, each had to surrender his or her belongings. Louise didn’t like giving the officers her money, and liked even less giving up her cigarettes. She was placed in an upstairs cell with an African American woman and was glad for the company. But the officer who put Louise in her cell didn’t let the other woman stay. “He said to her, ‘Hey, so and so—get out!’ The n-word.” Jon and Joe Hart were jailed on another floor, and Louise was nervous and lonely. Given her gregarious nature, it wasn’t long before she struck up a conversation with prisoners in an adjacent cell: “There were two black guys in the cell next to me. We spoke, and I said, ‘Oh, I wish I had a cigarette, honey.’ And these two black guys said, ‘Lady, would you like to have a cigarette? Go on over by the toilet, there’s a little hole there.We’ll pass a cigarette in through there.’I said,‘Okay!’I didn’t sleep; I just sat there. Pretty soon the white cop came by, and he was saying something dirty, referring to me. He opened up his pants.” The night was uncomfortable but otherwise uneventful.The next morning,Christmas,Jon, Louise, and Hart were released and Louise’s money returned. She gave the clerk money to pass on to the men who had given her cigarettes. Though she had no real hope the money would get to them, it seemed like the right thing to do. They piled into a cab bound for the Webbs’ apartment, where they spent the day and Hart stayed for Christmas dinner. During their early years in New Orleans, Louise tried several jobs, including stints as a clerk typist for the New...

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