What a week in Baton Rouge!
My week started off talking politics, politics, and more politics. I spoke with Leo Honeycutt about his recent biography on the rise and fall of former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards. I then met up with LSU professor Wayne Parent, author of “Inside the Carnival,” to discuss Louisiana politics in general and how it got its reputation.
The following day, I went to LSU’s Manship School Journalism to interview Robert Mann author “Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds” about the 1964 political ad LBJ ran the changed American politics. Then, Archivist Angela Proctor showed me around the John B. Cade Library at Southern University. We discussed their slave narrative collection as well as the collection of FBI files they have on Martin Luther King, Jr.
I met up with Greg Langley, book editor at The Baton Rouge Advocate, to talk about the state of the book business and the state of book reviewing. Later that day, Rachel Emanuel and I met back at LSU to discuss her book “A More Noble Cause” about civil rights attorney A.P. Tureaud. Tureaud was involved in numerous civil rights cases in Louisiana including the desegregation of LSU.
I finished up my week at Hill Memorial Library in the Special Collections department. There, Tara Lavar and Elaine Smyth showed two of the libraries most interesting pieces. The first was a book of outgoing correspondence by William Claiborne, who would eventually become the first governor of Louisiana. Claiborne was sent to the new territory by Thomas Jefferson after the Louisiana Purchase. Claiborne was tasked with governing the new territory and its people who were now “Americans.” The book is filled with letters between Claiborne and various officials, including Jefferson, about some of the difficulties he’s having.
The second item was what they refer to as “The Bloody Book.” This is believed to have on the table in front of Jean Paul Marat when he was assassinated in 1793. The book is covered in blood splatter, believed to belong to Marat, though it has never been tested.
Blood splatter – What a great way to end my week in Baton Rouge!
Tiffany
