64 Parishes

05/29/2026

Congratulations to 64 Parishes contributor Ned Randolph on being named a finalist for the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Open Access Book Award (Environmental Humanities Category) for his book, Muddy Thinking in the Mississippi River Delta.

Read Lucie Monk Carter's thoughtful review of Muddy Thinking, "Sunk Coast Fallacy," at https://64parishes.org/sunk-coast-fallacy

05/28/2026

For the spring 2026 issue, John Wirt explains how musicians from Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes have significantly contributed to Louisiana’s musical renown. Enumerating many of these impactful artists, Wirt concludes that the “past seventy-five years of creativity by Terrebonne and Lafourche Parish singers, songwriters, instrumentalists, arrangers, and bandleaders show the global impact of artists from our smaller Louisiana communities.”

Read the complete article here: https://64parishes.org/bayou-music

About the image: Tab Benoit playing in Warren, Ohio in 2025. Photo by Doug Hardesty, courtesy of Tab Benoit.

05/26/2026

“‘Spanish moss in my hand, turn me into Crawfish-Man.’

If you grew up a 1980s–era southwest Louisiana kid with a passion for superheroes, you might recognize the catchphrase that transforms a mild-mannered fisherman named Mr. Bonin into Louisiana’s own “Super Hereaux,” as his creator, Tim Edler, called him—the champion of the bayous, fighter for “peace, justice, and the Cajun Way,” the Crusading Crustacean: Crawfish-Man!”

Thus begins longtime contributor Rien Fertel’s winter 2022 column on Tim Edler’s Crawfish-Man. Read all about the character’s popularity and quick end in this funny and thoughtful article: https://64parishes.org/peace-justice-and-the-cajun-way

About the image: Crawfish-Man saves the day. Courtesy of Hill Memorial Library, Louisiana State University.

05/23/2026

On this day, May 23, 1934, fugitives Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker—famously known as “Bonnie and Clyde” — were captured in Bienville Parish.

“Notorious bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker drifted in and out of northern Louisiana during the two-year crime spree that turned them into Depression-era folk heroes. Suspected of murder and attempted murder, kidnapping, car theft, and numerous robberies in a reign of terror extending across Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Missouri, the Texas couple—known to all as Bonnie and Clyde—were gunned down by a posse of lawmen from Louisiana and Texas in a highway ambush near Gibsland, in rural Bienville Parish.”

Read more of Mary Ann Van Osdell’s 64 Parishes Encyclopeida entry here: https://64parishes.org/entry/capture-of-bonnie-and-clyde

About the image: Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

05/21/2026

Submissions close tomorrow! Learn more at https://ogdenmuseum.org/exhibition/louisiana-contemporary-2026/

Are you an artist over 18 years old and living in Louisiana? Submit your work to this year’s "Louisiana Contemporary," presented by The Helis Foundation! ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
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2026 guest juror Sarah Jones, Lulu C. and Anthony W. Wang Head of Live Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, will curate a selection of the works submitted, and then choose four award winners to receive further recognition. Selections will be on view at the Ogden Museum beginning August 1, 2026.⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
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𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀:

• Online entries will close at 11:59 p.m. Central Time Zone on Friday, May 22, 2026
• Notification of accepted entries will be sent through email to all applicants the week of June 29, 2026
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Visit https://bit.ly/3PgLeqW to learn more and submit work!⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣

[Ben Depp, "A Life Ring Floats Near a Wrecked Boat After Hurricane Ida. Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, 2021," 2021, Pigment print made from aerial photograph, 24 x 32 inches, Collection of the artist // Photo courtesy of Angelo Joseph]

05/19/2026

Megan Poole’s spring 2023 article takes the readers to Cameron Parish where she encounters the changing landscape and its implications on the environment and the animals that call this region of the state home.

Poole writes, “The persistent success of shore birds paired with the decreasing presence of waterfowl in the parish tells of a reality that Johnson knows well: there will always be a shore, but there may not always be a marsh. When I asked where he finds hope to continue his work, grappling with forces as mighty as the Gulf, Johnson pointed to the birds. He watches them raise their young in a dissolving coast and thinks, ‘If they can do it, we can do it.’”

Read more of Poole’s article here: https://64parishes.org/pillars-of-salt-in-the-marsh

About the image: Sanderling chasing the waves in search of a meal at Broussard Beach. Photo by Natalie Poole.

05/14/2026

For the spring 2026 issues, Placemaking columnist Lucie Monk Carter writes about the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe’s development of Tahch’i Farms, the only certified organic farm in Avoyelles Parish. The farm has made a big impact on access to fresh fruits and vegetables but also on the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe’s cultural identity.

Monk Carter explains that “Chairman Pierite sees the tribe’s ability to grow its own food as essential to his long-term vision for independence and self-reliance. ‘Through Tahch’i Farms,’ he said, ‘we are reclaiming our connection to the land and our ancestors’ agricultural tradition. It is about more than growing food; it is about promoting health, sustainability and community pride. By producing our own crops and teaching our people, especially our youth, how to cultivate and care for the land, we are strengthening both our sovereignty and our sense of identity.’”

Read more here: https://64parishes.org/ground-work

About the image: Sammy Velasquez brandishing turnips at Tahch'i Farms, the only certified organic farm in Avoyelles Parish. Courtesy of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana.

05/10/2026

On this day, May 10, 1837, Pinckney Benton Stewart “P.B.S.” Pinchback was born in Macon Georgia. Pinchback was the son of a white southern planter and a formerly enslaved woman. Pinchback “became the first African American to serve as governor of any American state, during a brief Reconstruction-era tenure as Louisiana’s chief executive. Prior to his political career, he served as one of the Union Army’s few commissioned officers of African descent during the Civil War, and in later years he helped establish Southern University in Baton Rouge. Lauded by his contemporaries for his efforts on behalf of civil rights while at the same time decried for his moral ambiguity, Pinchback was complex political figure who defied easy categorization.”

Read more of Justin a Nystrom’s 64 Parishes Encyclopedia entry on P.B.S. Pinchback here: https://64parishes.org/entry/p-b-s-pinchback

About the image: A seated portrait of Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback, the only African American to serve as governor of a southern state during Reconstruction. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

05/07/2026

In the spring 2023 issue, Benjamin Morris chases down the history of St. Joe bricks he found populating his yard and later, as he begins to notice, all across New Orleans. Morris uncovers the history behind the bricks and the history of brick making in the area.

He writes: “Trained as an archaeologist, I tend to assume that the antiquities I unearth from the soil don’t have web sites attached to them, much less phone numbers. Curious after these recent hauls, however, I looked up whether St. Joe still exists, and found not only an address less than an hour away, but a human voice on the other end of the telephone line inviting me to come and visit.”

Read more here: https://64parishes.org/the-st-joe-brick-yard

About the image: A moss-covered St. Joe brick in New Orleans. Courtesy of Randy Spitler.

05/05/2026

For the spring 2026 issue, longtime contributor Richard Campanella writes about northern Louisiana’s role as a gateway to the West. He explains that northern Louisiana was prime country for westward expansion because it “had solid terrain through which Native people blazed latitudinal pathways, crossing a sequence of longitudinal rivers. It remained largely unsettled by Europeans, being relatively inaccessible from the sea. It had eastern ingresses along the Mississippi River, convenient to Americans coming down from the north, and western egresses into Texas along the Sabine River. By the early 1800s, crude backcountry roads became to northern Louisiana what rivers and bayous had long been to southern Louisiana: the premier arteries for human mobility.”

Perhaps surprisingly, the locus of westward travel wasn’t Shreveport, but Greenwood, LA. Read Campanella’s piece to find out why.

Read more here: https://64parishes.org/gone-to-texas

About the image: Pioneer wagon on display in Greenwood,LA. Photo by Richard Campanella.