FOC Member Lecture Series
Descendants: The Divided Linage of a Louisiana Creole Family
FOC Member Lecture Series
Descendants: The Divided Linage of a Louisiana Creole Family
Join Friends of the Cabildo for a virtual evening with John Durel as he discusses his new book Descendants: The Divided Linage of a Louisiana Creole Family (UL-Lafayette Press, 2025). This program is provided free to members of the Friends of the Cabildo. Tickets for non-members are $10 per lecture or $25 for access to all lectures in the yearly series. The program will take place virtually on Zoom. Please register and/or purchase tickets for the lecture at the Friends of the Cabildo website.
About the Book
Based on extensive genealogical and archival research, Descendants traces evolving attitudes and laws regarding racial identity and relationships in New Orleans over 250 years through the lives of descendants of a French couple who arrived in the city in the 1750s. Spanning eight generations, this work highlights the complexities of race in Louisiana, touching on those who were enslaved and those who were enslavers, those who were wealthy and those of fewer means, those who were of solely European descent and those with mixed European, African, and American Indian ancestry.
The stories take the reader from colonial French and Spanish rule through the Civil War and Reconstruction and into the Jim Crow era of the twentieth century. Author John Durel culminates his research with a final chapter that juxtaposes his personal experience growing up middle class in the segregated South and a Black, working-class relative who labored at two jobs to provide for his family. Through it all, Descendants tracks the changing definition of what it meant to be Creole in New Orleans and the complex cultural, economic, and social connotations of one’s parentage.
About the Author
Born in Thibodaux, Louisiana, John Durel holds a PhD in American History from the University of New Hampshire. Following a career working in and consulting with museums nationwide and internationally, in 2019 he returned to his interest in historical research and writing. Descendants is his first book.
