So rich in history. I have to find some strangeness to following this great author for a few years, only to find she has white French Louisiana ancestry and I black Louisiana slave ancestry. I'm still not done investigating this history, but it turns out my first slave ancestor was a woman from Senegal to French Louisiana, around 1740s. She had a baby with a French white man, and that girl married anEnglish (actually Irish with an English name). Their son, one quarter black, born in 1786, married a woman also one quarter black, and he became Governor of Louisiana, serving from 1850-53, named Joseph Walker. He look much like my father, his great grandson. Ironically, he started the first public school system in the states, which was for white children only. Clearly his 13 children must have passed.

But, things became worse as noted in the article around 1890 and continued to become worse for 'mixed race' people. His grandson, my grandfather, now with an Irish last name, was still one quarter black. But in 1915 or so the law forbid "octoroons" from marrying whites, voting, etc. As a man with a law degree from Tulane, like his father, he knew the law and left for New York City, where he married and hid into the Irish crowd. So sad, and in some ways, it can show how supremacy can make things worse in the law and practice of it, not better.

Great story. I actually watched the Densel movie Devil in the Blue Dress that has a surprise creole twist ending that looked to be portrayed accurately by the choice of actors.