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On Sundays
Every Sunday, drum circles and dancing carry on the old tradition here
Every Sunday, the Congo Square Preservation Society gathers people in the square to celebrate its history and culture through drum circles, dancing and other musical performances. The society was created by percussionist Luther Gray to preserve the historical significance of the square. The open space now lies within Louis Armstrong Park, across Rampart Street from the French Quarter.
The market
On Sundays the enslaved set up a market here, and sang, danced and played
Under French and Spanish rule the enslaved were commonly allowed Sundays off. In the square they set up a market, sang, danced and played drums, gourds, banjo-like instruments and marimbas. In 1819 the architect Benjamin Latrobe wrote in his journal about the sight of hundreds of people dancing without supervision. Townsfolk gathered around the square on Sunday afternoons to watch.
The rhythms
These rhythms still sound in jazz funerals, second lines and Mardi Gras Indians
The rhythms played at Congo Square can still be heard today in New Orleans jazz funerals, second lines and Mardi Gras Indians parades. Creole composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk worked rhythms and tunes he heard in the square into pieces such as his famous Bamboula, Op. 2. The mix of African and European styles helped create African American culture.
The name
In 1893 the square was renamed Beauregard Square, but locals kept saying Congo
In 1893 city leaders named it Beauregard Square, in an attempt to suppress the mass gatherings there. Most locals continued to call it Congo Square. In the 1960s an urban renewal project leveled a substantial portion of Tremé around the square, and the City turned the land into Louis Armstrong Park. In 2011 the City Council voted to restore the traditional name.
“By restoring the name, Congo Square will continue to be remembered for the birthplace of the culture and music of New Orleans”
City Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, in the 2011 ordinance
Sundays off
The Sunday gatherings were allowed within limits, then faded under harsher rule
The Code Noir of 1724 gave enslaved Africans Sundays off but no right to gather, and they met under constant threat. In 1817 the mayor issued an ordinance limiting any gathering of the enslaved to Congo Square. There they could trade, and some raised money to purchase their freedom. As harsher United States practices of slavery replaced the Spanish colonial style, the gatherings declined, more than a decade before slavery ended.
Day 4, morning
Next is Faubourg Marigny.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Congo Square, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.