3 Best Sights in New Orleans, Louisiana

In a traffic circle at the northern edge of the Warehouse District, an 1884 bronze statue of Civil War General Robert E. Lee, by sculptor Alexander Doyle, stood high above the city on a white marble column—until spring 2017, that is, when Mayor Landrieu responded to local protests and nationwide attention to remove glorified Confederate monuments. Formerly called Lee Circle, it has now been renamed Harmony, as a public space that unites the city.

In the early 1800s, the wooden-rail balcony extending over Orleans Street was linked to a ballroom where free women of color met their French suitors—as Madame John of "Madame John's Legacy" is said to have done. The quadroons (technically, people whose racial makeup was one-quarter African) who met here were young, unmarried women of legendary beauty. A gentleman would select a favorite and, with her mother's approval, buy her a house and support her as his mistress. The sons of these unions, which were generally maintained in addition to legal marriages with French women, were often sent to France to be educated. This practice, known as plaçage, was unique to New Orleans at the time. The ballroom later became part of a convent and school for the Sisters of the Holy Family, a religious order founded in New Orleans in 1842 by the daughter of a quadroon to educate and care for African American women. The ballroom itself is not open to visitors, but a view of the balcony from across the street is enough to set the historical stage.

The inciting incident leading to the landmark 1896 “separate but equal” Supreme Court case took place at the train tracks between the Bywater and the Marigny, when a man named Homer Plessy boarded an all-whites train as an act of planned civil disobedience. A historical marker at the spot commemorates Plessy’s bravery in paving the way for later civil rights action. Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson, modern day descendants of Homer Plessy and Judge Ferguson (who voted against Plessy in the case), unveiled the plaque in 2009 and today run the Plessy & Ferguson Foundation, dedicated to civil rights education and history.