The New York Times, February 24, 2020: A Shot Before Last Call: Capturing New Orleans’s Vanishing Black Bars
Victor Dawkins’s routine has varied little in 40-plus years of owning The Other Place, a brick two-story that is one of the last Black-owned bars on St. Bernard Avenue.
But outside, much has changed. Four of the six nearby bars — all of which were once owned and operated by Black people and served Black customers — now have White owners and cater to a primarily White crowd.
I was born and raised in New Orleans. In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, I began documenting what remained after the floods.
Two years ago, I turned my camera to the disappearing Black bars and lounges on St. Bernard Avenue, as their ownership began to change. The trend is not limited to this avenue, though. Central City, a neighborhood in Uptown New Orleans that was once a bevy of Black spaces, is experiencing a similar shift.
