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P E R S P E C T I V E S : I M A G E S O F O U R S TAT E
“Vanishing Black Bars”
L. KASIMU HARRIS DOCUMENTS WHAT IS BEING LOST TO GENTRIFICATION IN NEW ORLEANS By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot
Y
ears ago, photographer and lias Bo Dollis Jr. raises his hand above his collection of educational materials pro- demographic shifts throughout the city. New Orleans native L. Ka- head, snapping and dancing along with vided in “Honey Bear’s Hotspot Bar & According to a 2016 report by The Houssimu Harris was walking near tambourine players and drummers—an Lounge”—a replica of an imagined Black ing Authority of New Orleans, the historSt. Bernard Avenue when he energetic tension transmitted through bar created in the back of the exhibition ically Black neighborhoods of the Bywaheard the telltale sounds of a second line. the photo as he and the other musicians space. Enhanced by the background mu- ter, Tremé, St. Roch, and St. Claude are “It was like a day that you wouldn’t really stretch open their mouths in song. In an- sic of two looping filmworks created by consistently becoming majority white; a expect a second line,” he said. “It was for other image, Mr. Victor, owner of The Harris and shown on a television in the 2020 report by the National Communia birthday party, and the brass band went Other Place Bar, sits at the bartop pen- corner, the “bar”—which is named for ty Reinvestment Coalition reported New into this Black bar on St. Bernard.” He sively. In the label, Harris reveals that as Harris’s father—features what Hickey Orleans as one of the most rapidly gentrifollowed the music and, enraptured, cap- the community continues to change, Mr. called a “simulated asbestos ceiling,” a fying cities in the country. tured about fifteen seconds of video. “I Victor has said that he is ready to sell. thread of neon Christmas lights, Saints For generations, St. Bernard Avenue didn’t think anything of it.” Harris first conceived of the idea paraphernalia, and a collage of Harris’s served as a host of watering holes for priFast forward to 2018, when Harris first around 2008, inspired primarily by own family photos. marily Black residents of the Seventh embarked on his mission of photographi- projects like Roy DeCarava’s late twen“These are not just bars,” Harris em- Ward and the Tremé, with six Blackcally preserving the worlds inside of New tieth-century portrayals of Harlem and phasizes in program notes, in his 2020 owned bars. Today, all of these instiOrleans’ Black bars, which tutions, save for two, are he had observed were disapwhite-owned and -patronpearing in droves. The bar ized. “And one might wonhe had followed the second der,” noted Harris, “why line into was now whitewould you get upset about owned and “devoid of any these bars closing? But Blackness from its past histhose bars shutter, those tratory”. On top of that, all evditions get displaced, and it idence of the bar’s existence changes the landscape and seemed to have been totally fabric of a neighborhood. erased, even its name. “It And that’s something really had only shuttered like two serious.” or three years earlier, and Since embarking on there was no record. Your the project in 2018, two favorite restaurant in New of the institutions Harris Orleans that shuts down— documented in New Orit was documented, it was leans have already closed, reviewed, there might even after decades in business: be recipes from it. So, it was Purple Rain Bar and The preserved in a way that will Sandpiper Lounge. Harlive beyond its ownership. ris’s images—captured in I realized that this hadn’t the watering holes’ final happened for these Black years—reveal, plainly, ex“Monday Faithfuls,” L. Kasimu Harris, Archival pigment print, Edition 1/4, 2019, Courtesy of the artist. spaces.” actly what we have lost: Vanishing Black Bars & “Unc” sipping on a pint of Lounges, currently on exBoone’s Farms with a buckhibition at the Hilliard University Mu- Birney Imes’ 1980s exploration of juke New York Times story on the project, and et of ice at his elbow, a $20 bill in hand; seum in Lafayette, presents Harris’s joints in the Mississippi Delta. “Just that over the phone with me. “They aren’t just three “Monday faithfuls” at the bar, one ongoing project. Curated by Benjamin unwavering commitment to telling a sto- places to gather and get drinks. They are leaning all the way back in his chair; price Hickey, the show peers—through Har- ry about place … I really appreciate that,” the epicenter of cultural life and of these lists and baby photos on the walls; girlris’s intimately-rendered photos—into said Harris. venerable traditions that we have in New friends giggling in the corner. seven New Orleans Black-owned bars. In a more indulgent study of influence Orleans. Be it the Social Aid and Pleasure But it’s even more than that. Purple At Verret’s Lounge, the bric-a-brac be- than found in most such exhibitions, Clubs or the Black Masking Indians.” Rain Bar is home to the Golden Blades hind the bar is presented like a landscape: Hickey places Harris’s work firmly withAfter scribbling the idea of document- Indians, who before its closure would a beer menu indicated by a row of Pabst in the tradition of American documenta- ing these cultural institutions in a note- dress there on Mardi Gras Day and St. Blue Ribbon, Coors Lite, and Abita Am- ry photography through a dedicated spe- book, Harris forgot about them for a de- Joseph’s Night. Today, its façade is paintber on shelves beside a portrait of a Black cial section within Vanishing Black Bars, cade. “I thought I had an infinite amount ed pink, and it looks as though it will Masking Indian Chief of the Black Mo- featuring the work of Imes and DeCara- of time,” he said. likely be turned into a residential buildhawks Tribe. In a piece titled “Lawdy,” va, along with other photographers who In the years since Hurricane Katrina ing in the near future. Big Six Brass Band trumpeter Eric Gor- have informed Harris’s work, including (the event which spurred Harris’s ca“Initially, this was about telling a stodon Jr. wipes his face inside Sportsman’s Keith Calhoun, Chandra McCormick, reer in photojournalism), rising demand ry,” said Harris. “But since engaging in Corner after playing a second line with W. Eugene Smith, Michael P. Smith, for property in New Orleans’ highest this project, I realized it was really about the Young Men Olympian Junior Benev- Carrie Mae Weems, and Dawoud Bey. ground neighborhoods—often popu- documenting these places, providing olent Association. At the First and Last Viewers are encouraged to spend lated by majority Black working-class proof that they existed.” h Stop Bar, Big Chief of The Wild Magno- more time with these artists through a communities—have resulted in drastic
See Vanishing Black Bars on exhibit at the Hilliard University Museum through July 30, 2022 and explore more of Harris’s work at lkasimuharris.com. 70
M A Y 2 2 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M
