John DeSantis is a reporter based in southeast Louisiana. He uncovered a story about the violent end of a sugar cane labor strike in the nearby town of Thibodaux that occurred in 1887. He wrote about what little he could find of the record of the events which, according to the official count, resulted in the deaths of eight people ” all of whom were black sugar cane workers.The story led to a book contract which pushed DeSantis to dig deeper into the story. With the help of an archivist at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, he was able to locate the names of the eight people who were listed as those killed in the streets of the town on a single day ” November 23, 1887. That led to yet another discovery which enabled him to get to eyewitness accounts of the massacre.DeSantis believes the number of black workers killed that day in Thibodaux by white vigilantes was between 30 and 60. Most were involved with the Knights of Labor strikes that had originated in Terrebonne Parish the year before, but carried over into neighboring LaFourche Parish in 1887.The book is a slim volume that unveils a wealth of detail about labor and raced relations in post-Reconstruction Louisiana and the violent events of that day in Thibodaux that reverberate still today.We talk about the events, the writing of the book, and the key discoveries that unlocked this story that “nobody wanted told.”DeSantis is now engaged in the effort to locate the place where the victims of the massacre were buried.

<!--td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}--> Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America was formed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in December 2012. The group, which now has approximately 5 million members has focused its energies on handgun laws and safety. While it has had success at the state lever (even here in Louisiana), it appeared to be fighting waves of public indifference to the hundreds of mass shootings that have happened since those pre-Christmas days when 20 children and six adults were gunned down at the school in Newton, Connecticut.The murder of 17 people — 14 students, one teacher and two coaches — last week seems to have broken through the numbness brought on by mass shootings between Sandy Hook and the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last week. The very public outcry of survivors of the shootings touched off waves of anger among young people which, in turned, appeared to shame adults whose inability to convince their lawmakers to pass laws to prevent further mass shootings allowed the mid-February murders to take place.Rhonda Gleason is a teacher and parent. She’s been active in the Louisiana chapter of Moms Demand Action for more than two years, playing mostly defense in this state where the NRA is actually a designated business partner of the State of Louisiana.As Gleason explains in this interview, Moms Demand Action’s successes in Louisiana have come through putting human faces on gun violence victims. In 2017, the group defeated a bill that would have eliminated the need for a concealed carry permit (and training) for “anyone who could show that they legally possessed a gun.”The Parkland, Florida, shootings have given the movement for common sense gun laws here and in other states new momentum. Perhaps America’s conscience has been re-engaged on the gun violence issue.Propelled by the new energy and outrage of young people who are tired of being targets, those opposing the NRA and their gun manufacturer patrons might now have the chance to pass laws that will break the current cycle of mass shootings that has seemed unending at times.

<!--td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}--> At the start of 2018, we are nearly three years out from the formal start of the redistricting process that will redraw lines for every legislative body in Louisiana ranging from town councils and school boards, to parish councils, the Louisiana Legislature and our six congressional districts.The process formally kicks off at the end of 2020 when the results of the United States Census conducted that year will be released. In 2021, the redrawing of district lines will fall primarily on the legislative bodies that will then elect members from.But, before we get to that point, Louisiana will elect a new legislature in 2019 and that body will redraw not only its own district lines, but that of our congressional districts and, maybe, our Supreme Court districts.Dr. Brian Marks teaches political geography at LSU in Baton Rouge. He was a panelist at Fair Districts Louisiana’s Redistricting Summit held at the Lod Cook Alumni Center just off the LSU campus on January 19.In this conversation, Dr. Marks (who is programming director at WHYR radio station in Baton Rouge) talks about the various kinds of gerrymandering that has been used over the decades in attempts to lock in or lock out political advantage. We also talk about some earlier redistricting processes in Louisiana and the prospects for the use of an independent commission to carryout redistricting.Representative and House Speaker Pro Tempore Walt Leger III said at the summit that he believes Legislators should not be in the business of choosing their constituents, that it should work the other way around. He didn’t get much support for the idea from fellow Democrats. Removing politics from a political process is easier said than done.Louisiana’s current congressional district map was redrawn with the explicit purpose of carving out a new seat for Congressman Charles Boustany whose 7th District was taken away due to the more rapid population growth in other states. Boustany won the redrawn 3rd District in a 2012 race that pitted him against freshman Congressman Jeff Landry (who is now state Attorney General).Black legislators now believe they painted themselves into a corner with the 2011 redistricting which saw many minority majority districts that had super majorities of Black voters in those districts. The problem was, as Rep. Patricia Haynes Smith said at the summit, “while you’re getting seats that are safe for African Americans with that approach, you’re also creating white seats where people elected don’t have to take into account the interests of Black voters.We cover a good bit of ground here. I think you’ll find it worth your while.

This show materialized when I could not find a guest to interview during the final week of 2017. So, I wrote up some notes and reminders and recorded a monologue about 2017 events that I thought were significant and had the potential to have an impact in the New Year which was just around the corner.Most of this was about public events, but there is a segment that deals with some personal losses I experienced in 2017. Those losses involved my mom and my friend Jim Simmon. Mom’s death was not unexpected, she had been in a slow, steady decline for about 10 months. Still, despite having time to prepare for it, I was taken aback by how hard it hit me.Jim Simmon and I had broken into journalism together at the Opelousas Daily World in about 1978. We did some work together interviewing candidates for governor in 1979. We also lived together in a drafty old farm house outside of Lawtell, LA, during a bitterly cold winter. Thankfully, Jim had a full-size Ford pickup truck and hundreds of trees had been cut along then-US 167 near Opelousas as it was being converted into I-49. We got a lot of free wood as a result and occasionally managed to get the house warm during that winter. We certainly chopped a lot of wood!Anyway, this podcast was the final show of 2017. Sorry for the delay in posting it.

<!--td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}--> John M. Barry‘s books have informed and moved people, but his greatest accomplishment may well be having singled-handedly (at first) changed Louisiana’s conversation about saving our coast.Barry did this by working diligently and persistently to convince his fellow members of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority–East (SLFPAE) to launch a lawsuit against what were originally 99 oil, gas and pipeline companies for damage their work inflicted on wetlands under its jurisdiction. The lawsuit drew the wrath of Louisiana’s political gods at the time — Governor Bobby Jindal and the oil and gas industry. Killing the levee board lawsuit became Jindal’s obsession.Unlike much of Louisiana’s governing processes, the super levee boards created in the wake of the federal levee failures in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, were designed to move the politics out of what was recognized as an essential work of the state — protecting citizens and their property from flooding.Members of the authorities (east and west) were nominated through a process of committees, who then submitted limited lists of nominees to the governor from which to choose. Terms for the members were fixed — they did not serve at the pleasure of the governor. As a result, Jindal could not replace the board with one more compliant to what had until then be the time-honored Louisiana political position that we knew the oil and gas industry had damaged our coastal wetlands, but our leaders (whose campaigns were financed by that industry) did not want the oil and gas industry to pay for that damage.Barry’s term had expired by the time Jindal launched his war against the levee board. Barry was not renominated. Instead, he formed the non-profit Restore Louisiana Now where he led the public campaign to explain the logic behind the lawsuit and the fight to prevent Jindal and legislators from killing the lawsuit.The official count is that 19 bills were filed in the 2014 session seeking various ways of killing the suit. One managed to pass but it was later declared unconstitutional because the Senate had violated its own rules in the manner it handled the bill.The lawsuit bounced between state and federal jurisdictions before landing in the federal district court in New Orleans where it was struck down. Subsequent appeals upheld the decision.But, while the rush was on to try to kill the levee board lawsuit, parishes operating in the Coastal Zone — where the damage occurred — started filing suits against oil and gas companies for coastal damages using their standing under the Coastal Zone Management Act. A total of six suits have been filed thus far. More are expected in 2018.Governor John Bel Edwards succeeded Jindal in office and has been encouraging the other 14 parishes in the Coastal Zone to launch similar suits. Edwards deputized the Department of Natural Resources to be his vehicle to input in the suits after Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, who campaigned publicly against the suits in 2015, sought to intervene in the suits to displace the parishes.We’re a ways away from resolving the suits and we’re a long way from saving our coast. But, we will never go back to the days when everybody but the oil and gas industry is asked to do their fair share in what will be an intergenerational, multi-billion dollar effort to stop south Louisiana from sinking into the Gulf of Mexico.We have John Barry to thank for that. And for his great books!

<!--td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}--> An intra-party squabble involving Louisiana’s then-seven congressmen dominated the 2011 congressional redistricting process. Because other states grew faster than us, Louisiana lost a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2010 Census.The Legislature has the responsibility to redraw the congressional district maps after each Census, but the congressional delegation is actively involved in the process. That was certainly the case during the 2011 special session on redistricting.Congressman Charles Boustany‘s 7th Congressional District was being eliminated as the state went from seven to six districts. Boustany wanted to stay in Congress and was popular with his colleagues. Congressman Jeff Landry‘s 3rd Congressional District was adjacent to Boustany’s 7th and together they covered just about all of coastal south Louisiana.The map that won the backing of the majority of the congressional delegation and the Legislature created the new 3rd District primarily out of Boustany’s old 7th. Landry’s old 3rd District (to which he’d won election in 2010) was carved up between the 1st and 6th Districts and Landry found him self running for re-election in 2012 against Boustany. Boustany won and Landry went off to work for the Koch Brothers for a bit.The problem with the resulting map is that the jockeying for a favorable map between Boustany and Landry obscured what should have been the central consideration in drawing the new six-district map — Louisiana’s 37 percent non-white population warranted the creation of at least two congressional districts where minorities would have a chance to get elected (not to mention Democrats).We are approaching the beginning of a new cycle that will give Louisiana a shot at creating a congressional district map that more accurately reflects the demographic reality of the state than the one we will have been saddled with for a decade by the time 2021 rolls around.The key is citizen involvement. There will be plenty of opportunities to do that. There are tools that can enable you to develop your own maps to submit. Most of all, it’s clear that allowing a single party to dominate redistricting does not produce a map that reflects us as a people. Ultimately, that diminishes the ability of our congressional delegation, legislature and local governing councils to represent the people they are elected to serve.In the podcast, I talk about the 2011 process (in which I was an active participant) and opportunities to learn about the upcoming process that will be upon us sooner than you think. Hint: the 2019 statewide elections will be crucial.

Lily Stagg spent the late spring and most of the summer of 2016 riding with a group of cyclists from South Carolina to Santa Cruz, California, helping to build low-income housing along the way. The ride covered 4,200 miles in 81 days — including 18 days of working on houses.There were 30 other riders in her group, including four team leaders. Most of the riders had never met each other until they gathered in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina (across the bay from Charleston) for a couple of days of preparation before they set out.Adjusting to all those personalities during a period of extreme physical and mental exertion proved to be the biggest challenge of the adventure, Lily says in the interview.The experience was intense and transformative. Lily was already a dedicated cyclist before her Bike and Build summer, having ridden as a member of the University of Louisiana Ragin Cajun Cycling team in the spring semester prior to the cross country ride. She had just recovered from a serious cycling accident prior to her collegiate team experience which provided the perfect training regime to at least get her ready to ride across the United States.This interview was recorded in September, 2016, just over a month after Lily returned to Lafayette from California after completing the SC2SC Route and joining her by then best friends in dipping their wheels in the Pacific.Since this interview, Lily has ridden another spring season with the UL team and branched out into cyclo-cross during the fall.In this interview, Lily talks about how cycling evolved from a nice means of transportation into a passion that has her seeking out opportunities to race across the Gulf South.

Michelle Erenberg is co-founder of Lift Louisiana — a non-profit based in New Orleans that advocates for the freedom of women to exercise their reproductive rights. Erenberg is a wife and mother who has been a public policy analyst and advocate for the past 15 years.In our conversation, Erenberg explains that she started Lift Louisiana to help raise women above the barrage of laws that the Louisiana legislature passes on a regular basis that invariably seek to limit the choices available to Louisiana women when it comes to reproductive rights.It is clear from the actions of working majorities in the Louisiana legislature that women are viewed as second-class citizens. Many of those same law makers parroted lies about opposing the Affordable Care Act because (they maintained) they opposed allowing the government to come between patients and their doctors. Yet, the anti-abortion laws and regulations enacted and promulgated have had that exact effect — inserting the State of Louisiana into what should be private discussions between women and their doctors.It’s moved beyond irony into blatant hypocrisy.Earlier this year, Lift Louisiana launched a statewide media campaign calling for Louisiana lawmakers to pass laws based on facts, not laws based on lies. Erenberg says that is precisely what many of the state’s restrictive abortion laws and rules are — based on lies about science and medicine.In addition to public advocacy (Erenberg is not an attorney), Lift Louisiana also helps train lawyers in the process of how to represent minors who seek abortions in the state-mandated judicial bypass hearings. They do that as part of the Louisiana Judicial Bypass Project.While Lift Louisiana has just gotten started, Erenberg says the group will continue to publicly advocate for women’s reproductive freedom as well as full healthcare equality. Judging by their early work, Erenberg and Lift Louisiana are off to a solid start.

<!--td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}--> Scott Eustis has had a busy mid-2017.As the Gulf Restoration Network‘s wetlands specialist, he’s been part of flyovers finding chemical and petroleum product releases in the flood waters following Hurricane Harvey’s strike and the flooding that inundated southeast Texas in the wake of the storm. He’s been involved in flyovers in the Gulf of Mexico where pipeline ruptures remain part of the regular cost of business there. And, he’s been flying above the Atchafalaya Basin watching pipeline operators wreck “water quality projects” that had repaired Basin water flow that had been disrupted by earlier pipeline work at a cost of millions of dollars to taxpayers.Like a number of environmental organizations in Louisiana, GRN and Eustis are fighting the proposed Bayou Bridge Pipeline proposed by Energy Transfer Partners. It’s one leg of the network that begins with the Dakota Access Pipeline in the Bakken fields of North Dakota and zig-zags across and down the country into Nederland, TX. Bayou Bridge aims to connect the Nederland operation and a Phillips 66 refinery in Lake Charles to a storage facility in St. James Parish on the Mississippi River.There are thousands of pipelines in Louisiana. The challenge is making the case that Bayou Bridge is somehow more dangerous than those others.Eustis talks about the need for an environmental impact study of the Bayou Bridge project in the context of the already significant damage inflicted on the Basin by those other pipelines. The cumulative effect of hundreds (if not thousands) of disruptions of water flow in the Basin threatens its viability as a swamp and estuary.Eustis and GRN work in five northern Gulf of Mexico states — Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas. It’s a broad, culturally, geologically and environmentally diverse. The indifference of the Trump administration to the environment and threats to it has made the work of GRN all the more important. The broad range of outrages that flow from the Trump White House and threaten things from civil rights to climate protections has sparked resistance but also a raft of new organizations, all of which seem to be competing for a fixed piece of the financial real of progressives.Established organizations have been squeezed as new ones emerge with the resistance strategy of the moment.The climate and environmental challenges confronting the country grow daily and groups like Gulf Restoration Network have been stretching to respond.Scott Eustis is on the frontlines watching the problems unfold, documenting the damage done, and chronicling the reckoning that is coming if we don’t find effective responses quickly.

The United States spends more on military arms, equipment and personnel than any other country. More than China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and England combined, according to the National Priorities Project. We sell most of the weapons that countries like Saudi Arabia, England and others buy.In no small measure, the business of the United States is war.Between our foreign policy and our defense spending, we create markets for weaponry and wars and then pivot to respond to the siren cries of those markets.And, while the U.S. Defense Department stands resolute in its commitment to respond to climate change to protect its bases and national security interests, the Department is a major source of greenhouse gases as a profligate burner of fossil fuels.The No War 2017 Conference at American University in Washington in September sought to find paths to link the anti-way and peace movements with the climate and environmental movements. That effort naturally puts the U.S. military at the center of the debate.The conference was a project of World Beyond War, an international peace organization.I was invited to speak about the successful fight to prevent the open burning of 16 million pounds of munitions propellant at Camp Minden following an explosion of a small amount of some of the materials in 2012. After a strong grassroots effort that engaged thousands of northwest Louisiana citizens in the fight, the area’s congressman, one Senator, and a dedicated state representative.While at the conference, I conducted several interviews,