How Pope Leo's Creole roots in New Orleans tell "an American story"
Why it matters: The new pope, formerly known as Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, has a family history that tells a uniquely American story.
Catch up quick: Once Prevost was elevated to Pope Leo XIV on Thursday, Historic New Orleans Collection genealogist Jari Honora got curious and immediately researched his family background.
Based on the name Prevost, Honora tells Axios New Orleans, "I honestly was not looking for an immediate Louisiana connection. ... But on his mother's side, they are definitely from New Orleans."
Honora's research shows that Pope Leo's maternal grandparents were Joseph Martinez and Louise Baquié, who lived in the 7th Ward. They married at Our Lady of Sacred Heart Church in 1887 before moving to Chicago between 1910 and 1912.
That move makes Pope Leo's family part of the early, Jim Crow-era Black diaspora from the American South known as the Great Migration.
During a stretch of time between about 1915 and 1970, about 6 million Black southerners left the Deep South, according to historian Isabel Wilkerson in her book "The Warmth of Other Suns."
"The Great Migration would become a turning point in history," she wrote. "It would transform urban America and recast the social and political order of every city it touched." Chicago was a common landing place, according to Wilkerson, with its Black population expanding from about 44,000 to more than 1 million people.
In other words, as Honora says, Pope Leo's story "is absolutely an American story."
The intrigue: For some migrants, leaving the South also meant a chance to change how they presented, which Prevost's family did, Honora says.
"Fairly consistently, they are listed in census and other records in New Orleans as Black and 'mulatto,'" he says. "But once they migrate to Chicago, those identifiers are all switched to white."
In New Orleans, there's a Creole term — " passé blanc" — for people of color who can "pass" for white.
"That's just not surprising for families that are in the process of passing. I don't fault them at all," Honora says. "I see it as a decision to safeguard their livelihoods, and an economic decision both to leave New Orleans and go to larger cities in the North, as well as to shift racial identities."
What he's saying: John Prevost, the pope's brother, tells the New York Times that his family did not discuss their Creole ancestry. "It was never an issue," he said.
Fun fact: New Orleans Archdiocese records indicate that Pope Leo's maternal great-grandmother Eugenie Grambois was baptized at the St. Louis Cathedral on Jan. 8, 1840.
She later married Ferdinand D. Baquié on Sept. 19, 1864 at St. Mary's Church on Chartres Street, church records indicate.
What it means to be "Creole"
Flashback: New Orleans has been culturally diverse since its founding as a French city, and its complicated history includes periods as being both the home to one of the largest populations of free people of color and as the site of one of the largest markets for enslaved people.
New Orleans' Creole population was born of that history.
"Most people link 'Creole' to being mixed race, or they link it to something related to race as a whole, and it is not," Honora clarifies. "It's shared by people who are white, who are Black, indigenous or any combination thereof."
To be Creole, says Honora, who counts himself as such, is to be "solidly rooted in Latin-based, Roman Catholic cultural practices in the New World, and particularly Louisiana."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
7 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Jim Crow meets ICE at ‘Alligator Alcatraz'
A few years ago I came across a profoundly unnerving historical photo: A lineup of terrified, naked Black babies cowered over the title 'Alligator Bait.' As it turned out, the idea of Black babies being used as alligator bait was a beloved trope dating back to the antebellum South, though it didn't really take off until after the Civil War. The image I saw was created in 1897, just one year after Plessy vs. Ferguson established 'separate but equal' as the foundational doublespeak of segregation. With formerly enslaved people striking out and settling their own homesteads, the prevailing stereotypes deployed to justify violence against Black people were forced to evolve. We were no longer simple and primitive, in desperate need of the civilizing stewardship of white Christian slave owners. After emancipation, we became dangerous, lazy and worthless. Worth less, in fact, than the chickens more commonly used to bait alligators. White Floridians in particular so fell in love with the concept of alligators hungry for Black babies that it birthed an entire industry. Visitors to the Sunshine State could purchase souvenir postcards featuring illustrations of googly-eyed alligators chasing crying Black children. There was a popular brand of licorice called 'Little African,' with packaging that featured a cartoon alligator tugging playfully at a Black infant's rag diaper. The tagline read: 'A Dainty Morsel.' Anglers could buy fishing lures molded in the shape of a Black baby protruding from an alligator's mouth. You get the idea. When I first learned of all this, naturally, I was unmoored. I was also surprised that I'd never heard of the alligator bait slur. Why doesn't it sit alongside the minstrel, the mammy and the golliwog in our cultural memory of racist archetypes? Did it cross some unspoken line with the vulgarity of its violence? Perhaps this particular dog whistle was a tad too audible? Or was it the plausible deniability? Did people (including historians) wave it away because babies were never 'really' used as alligator bait? It's true that beyond the cultural ephemera — which includes songs (such as the ragtime tune 'Mammy's Little Alligator Bait') and mechanical alligator toys that swallow Black babies whole, over and over again — there are apparently no surviving records of Black babies sacrificed in this way. No autopsy reports, no court records proving that anyone was apprehended and convicted of said crime. But of course, why would there be? The thing I found so unnerving about the alligator bait phenomenon wasn't its literal veracity. There's no question human beings are capable of that and far worse. Without a doubt, 'civilized' people could find satisfaction — or comfort, or justice, or opportunity — in the violent slaughter of babies. Donald Trump's recently posted AI clip 'Trump Gaza,' which suggests the real world annihilation of Palestinians will give way to luxury beachfront resorts, is a shining example. The thing that haunted me about alligator bait was the glee with which the idea was embraced. It was funny. Cute. Harmless. Can't you take a joke? Now here we are, 100 years after 'Mammy's Little Alligator Bait,' and the bigots are once again using cartoon alligators to meme-ify racial violence, this time against immigrants. Just like the title 'Alligator Bait,' the Florida detention center name 'Alligator Alcatraz' serves multiple ends: It provokes sadistic yuks. It mocks. It threatens. But most crucially, it dehumanizes. 'Alligator Bait' suggests that Black people are worthless. By evoking the country's most infamous prison, 'Alligator Alcatraz' frames the conversation as one about keeping Americans safe. It suggests the people imprisoned there are not vulnerable and defenseless men and women; anyone sent to 'Alligator Alcatraz' must be a criminal of the worst sort. Unworthy of basic human rights. Fully deserving of every indignity inflicted upon them. 'Alligator Alcatraz' cloaks cruelty in bureaucratic euphemism. It's doublespeak, masking an agenda to galvanize a bloodthirsty base and make state violence sound reasonable, even necessary. It has nothing to do with keeping Americans safe. Oft-cited studies from Stanford, the Libertarian Cato Institute, the New York Times and others have shown conclusively that immigrants, those here legally and illegally, are significantly less likely to commit violent crimes than their U.S.-born neighbors. If those behind 'Alligator Alcatraz' cared at all about keeping Americans safe, they wouldn't have just pushed a budget bill that obliterates our access to healthcare, environmental protection and food safety. If they actually cherished the rule of law, they would not deny immigrants their constitutionally guaranteed right to due process. If they were truly concerned about crime, there wouldn't be a felon in the White House. As souvenir shops and Etsy stores flood with 'Alligator Alcatraz' merch, it's worth noting that none of it is played for horror. Like the cutesy alligator bait merchandise before it, these aren't monster-movie creatures with blazing eyes and razor-sharp, blood-dripping teeth. The 'Alligator Alcatraz' storefront is cartoon gators slyly winking at us from under red baseball caps: It's just a joke, and you're in on it. And it's exactly this cheeky, palatable, available-in-child-sizes commodification that exposes the true horror for those it targets: There will be no empathy, no change of heart, no seeing of the light. Dear immigrants of America: Your pain is our amusement. The thing I keep wondering is, would this cheekiness even be possible if everyone knew the alligator bait history, the nastiness of which was buried so deep that 'Gator bait' chants echoed through the University of Florida stadium until 2020? Would they still chuckle if they saw the century-old postcards circulated by people who 'just didn't know any better'? My cynical side says: Yeah, probably. But my strategic side reminds me: If history truly didn't matter, it wouldn't be continuously minimized, rewritten, whitewashed. There's truth in the old idiom: Knowledge is power. Anyone trying to keep knowledge from you, whether by banning books, gutting classrooms, denying identities or burying facts, is only trying to disempower you. That's why history, as painful as it often is, matters. Remembering the horror of alligator bait isn't about dwelling on the grotesque. It's about recognizing how cruelty gets coded into culture. 'Alligator Alcatraz' is proof that alligator bait never went away. It didn't evolve or get slicker. It's the same old, tired cruelty, rebranded and aimed at a new target. The goal is exactly the same: to manufacture consent for suffering and ensure the most vulnerable among us know where they stand — as props, as bait, as punchlines. And no joke is more vulgar than one mocking the pain of your neighbors, whether they were born in this country or not. Ezra Claytan Daniels is a screenwriter and graphic novelist whose upcoming horror graphic novel, 'Mama Came Callin',' confronts the legacy of the alligator bait trope.
Chicago Tribune
8 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Today in Chicago History: Stoning death of Eugene Williams triggers start of 1919 race riots
Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on July 27, according to the Tribune's archives. Is an important event missing from this date? Email us. From Halas to Hester: The 32 Chicago Bears inducted into the Pro Football Hall of FameWeather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago) 1919: Black teen Eugene Williams floated on a wooden tie past an invisible but mutually understood line that separated a Black beach at 29th Street from a white beach at 26th Street. White youths threw rocks at him, according to later investigations, and Williams, who could not swim, was hit and drowned. Although several people, white and Black, tried to revive Williams, a police officer at the 26th Street Beach was unwilling to arrest the rock throwers on the word of their Black accusers or to help Williams. Unequal justice proved to be the rule during the ensuing violence, until the four-day chaos finally was ended by the Illinois militia and a cooling rain. Williams is buried in Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island. Vintage Chicago Tribune: Disasters!!!!! Crashes, fires, riots and more from Illinois history.1960: A Chicago Helicopter Airways chopper, on a shuttle flight between Midway and O'Hare International Airport, crashed in a Forest Park cemetery after one of its rotor blades broke off. The accident killed the two crewmen and 11 passengers, and was blamed on a metal fatigue fracture in the blade. The federal government mandated more frequent inspections of the component. 1970: Sears, Roebuck & Co. — then the world's largest retailer — announced plans to build the world's tallest building — 1,450 feet high with 110 stories. The Sears Tower opened in 1973, but was not completed until 1974. Willis Tower is no longer the tallest building in the world. But it's still a trendsetter as it turns 50 this 1,451-foot tower lost its crown as the world's tallest when it was surpassed in 1996 by Malaysia's Petronas Towers, and the American title in 2013 when New York City's One World Trade Center was completed. After decades of construction in Asian countries, it's now the 25th tallest in the world. 1970: A Sly and the Family Stone concert devolved into a riot. The show was supposed to be a goodwill offering, not only from city officials to the area's youths, but also from the band to the city to make up for more than one last-minute no-shows. Instead, the rock show disintegrated into a riot that injured 162 people, including 126 police officers. Thirty of those officers were hospitalized. Three young people were shot, though it wasn't clear by whom. Cars were overturned and set ablaze. Before its fury was exhausted, the mob rampaged through the Loop, breaking hundreds of windows and looting jewelry and department stores. Police arrested 160 people. 1982: Otto — a 450-pound gorilla who was the star of the 1976 documentary 'Otto: Zoo Gorilla' and named for disgraced former Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner — apparently scaled an 11-foot wall topped with electrical wires in an outdoor enclosure and escaped the Ape House at the Lincoln Park Zoo. He then lumbered north to the Primate House and climbed up a ramp to the Administration Building. He was sitting on the building's roof just above zoo Director Lester Fisher's office when veterinarian Tom Meehan hit Otto with tranquilizer darts. It took up to 10 zoo employees to place the gorilla on a stretcher and return him to the Ape House. Vintage Chicago Tribune: How Wrigley Field got lights and why Cubs fans had to wait past 8-8-88 to raise 'W' flag1983: After rejecting arguments that a permanent ban would be illegal, aldermen voted 42-2 to pass an ordinance — which did not name Wrigley Field or the Tribune-owned Chicago Cubs — making it illegal to conduct any sporting event between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. in a stadium that 'contains more than 15,000 seats where any such seats are located within 500 feet of 100 or more dwelling units.' 1993: The Smashing Pumpkins released 'Siamese Dream.' Singer-guitarist Billy Corgan told the Tribune: 'I'm writing albums for people of my generation, and if the rest of the world wants to listen, fine.' Subscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group, stay current with Today in Chicago History and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago's past.
Miami Herald
21 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Zoo Miami's iconic ‘Lion King' Jabari euthanized at 17 years old. Here's why
Jabari wasn't just any old lion at Zoo Miami. He broke records, sired many children, became a local favorite and lived exponentially longer than his kin in the wild. After traveling from the Midwest to Miami when he was just a cub 17 years ago, Jabari was euthanized Friday afternoon, succumbing to his battle with arthritis. At 17 years old, he exceeded the normal lifespan of a wild male lion, which rarely live past the age of 12, Zoo Miami said in a statement. Jabari first arrived at the zoo in November 2008, along with his brother, Kwame, from the Racine Zoo in Wisconsin. Before their arrival, lions had been absent from Zoo Miami for nearly seven years. A true 'Lion King,' Jabari was the only adult lion in Zoo Miami's history to lead a pride and share a habitat with an adult female and cubs, some of whom were his. The historic feat garnered him thousands of fans who saw him and his pride in a rare sight. For the past few years, Jabari has suffered from chronic arthritis in his upper spine, limiting his movements. While he was receiving treatment, his mobility issues progressively worsened. Zookeepers said he was no longer comfortable. 'With all treatment options exhausted and no other path available for a cure or relief, the very difficult decision was made to euthanize him [Friday],' the zoo said. Lions are classified as 'threatened' in the wild, according to Zoo Miami, and are greatly affected by habitat loss and human conflict, as they share over 50% of their home in the wild with people. Zoo Miami funds Lion Landscapes, which helps protect wild lions, and works with other zoos and aquariums to save them and other animals from extinction. Flamingo chick hatches While Zoo Miami is saying goodbye to one old friend, keepers also announced Friday that one of four flamingo chicks has hatched. The Caribbean flamingo was artificially incubated for 28 days to avoid South Florida's extreme weather and predators. The three other eggs are still incubating. It's still unknown if the chick is a boy or a girl, but its parents are a 22-year-old female and a 10-year-old male. Zookeepers are currently feeding and attending to the chick, but when it develops its 'full feathering,' it will be introduced to the flock and can be seen by guests. The Caribbean or American flamingo is one of the largest and most brightly colored of all the flamingo species. It ranges from Mexico through the Caribbean and into South America. They feed on algae and a variety of aquatic invertebrates, which is where they get their salmon pink color.
