UNO Documentary: The Treme

What: The Treme

Film by: UNO student Maya Fernbaugh

Editor’s Note: In this short documentary, we explore the history, the culture, and the art that originated from the Treme, New Orlean’s most historic African American neighborhood. With colorful and vibrant shots of the beloved neighborhood, this film tells the story of the momentous movements that originated in the Treme, including the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and Jazz.

[Read the full transcript below]

[Music]

For over 200 years, the Treme neighborhood in New Orleans has existed as the oldest African-American neighborhood in the United States. With such rich history and a melting pot of culture, this neighborhood holds a historical significance to New Orleans. The immigration of Haitian refugees during the Haitian revolution of the early 1800s is what gave birth to this neighborhood. The neighborhood is named after Claude Treme, a French milliner and property owner. This neighborhood became an entertainment center for White and Black Creoles to congregate. The addition of Haitian immigrants adds more abundance of culture to the New Orleans area, adding Haitian influence to a New Orleans melting pot of Spanish, French and African-American culture. New Orleans, at the time, was still bound to the French Quarter. The Treme, and other outside neighborhoods, were originally farms or swamps. Many claim that the Treme is the birthplace of Jazz, as well home to great musicians, such as Trombone Shorty, Kermit Ruffins, Alphonse Picou, and Shannon Powell. Jazz became, economically and politically, a voice for African-American New Orleanians. This also gave way to the Treme being the start of the Civil Rights Movement as well. 

[Music]

Congo Square also lives in the Treme. One of the only safe places on Sundays that enslaved people could celebrate their culture and be themselves. Congo Square allowed enslaved people to dance, trade goods, and even create music. This was until the US took control before the Civil War out of fear of unsupervised gatherings of enslaved people.

[Music]

The Treme is home to St. Augustine, one of the oldest African-American Catholic church parishes in the nation. Homer Plessy was even a parishioner in this church. Yes, the same Homer Plessy from the infamous Plessy vs. Ferguson case, the case where racial segregation was allowed on the basis of separate but equal.

[Music]

The Treme holds such a significance to New Orleans culture because it was one of the only major Black communities in the past. The Treme created a place where enslaved people could become free, civil rights movements could be planned, and where culture could be preserved. The Treme is owed the credit of being the backbone to the major history of not only New Orleans, but the United States as well.