Rodolphe Desdunes

Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes
Born	(1849-11-15)November 15, 1849 New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
Died	August 14, 1928 (aged 78) Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.
Alma mater	Straight University
Occupation	Customs Officer, Journalist, Historian
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Mathilde Cheval Denebourg Clementine Walker

Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes (November 15, 1849 – August 14, 1928) was a civil rights activist, poet, historian, journalist, and customs officer primarily active in New Orleans, Louisiana. Later in life he moved to Omaha, Nebraska. In Louisiana he was a militiaman involved in the Battle of Liberty Place. Later, he was a member of L'Union Louisianais and wrote for the weekly of the same name. He also wrote for the daily paper, the Crusader, and taught at the Couvent School in New Orleans. In 1890, he was a founder of the Comité des Citoyens which fought the 1890 Separate Car Act through legal challenges, leading to the US Supreme Court Case, Plessy vs Ferguson. He also wrote an important French-language history of Creoles in America called Nos Hommes et Notre Histoire, the first such book written in French by a member of the Louisiana Creole Community.

Life

Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes was born November 15, 1849 as one of at least five children of Pierre Jérémie Desdunes and Henriette Angélique (Sonty) Gaillard along with Pierre Aristide, Joseph, Elmore, and Sarazin. Pierre Aristide was also involved with civil rights. By profession he was a poet, a cigar maker, a carpenter, and owner of a tobacco plantation. He fought in the civil war, and was on the board of directors of the Couvent School created by Marie Couvent in 1848. In 1873 Aristide married Louise Mathilde Denebourg. Rodolphes father, Pierre, lived in New Orleans at least as early as 1840 and was probably born in the city, although the Desdunes family originated in Haiti,^[1] probably moving to Louisiana during the 1791 Haitian Revolution. Rodolphe's education was likely provided by family and family friends Armand Lanusse and Joanni Questy, as well as at the Couvent School.^[2]

Rodolphe married Mathilde Cheval and lived for some time with her mother, also named Mathilde. Before 1880, they had children Daniel (born in about 1873), Agnes (about 1873), Louise (about 1874), Coritza (born in 1876), and Wendelle (born winter 1876-1877). The Chevals may have descended from early Cheval settlers of the Tremé district, Pierre and Léandre. In 1879, Rodolphe started a relationship with Clementine Walker, born in 1860 and daughter of John and Ophelia Walker. Rodolphe and Clementine had at least four children, Mary Celine (in 1879), John Alexander (1881), Louise (1889), and Oscar Alphonse (1892). Clementine died September 23, 1893. Mary Celine later became known as Mamie Desdunes and was a blues pianist. Clementine lived near Jelly Roll Morton's godmother and Jérémie and Henriette Desdunes were neighbors of Morton's mother. From this proximity, Morton learned the song he recorded as "Mamie's Blues" or "2:19 Blues" and attributed to Mamie, singing, "Can’t give a dollar, give a lousy dime,/ I wanna feed that hungry man of mine." Other associates of Mamie included performer Bunk Johnson and promoters Hattie Rogers and Lulu White. Mamie was born March 25, 1879, married George Degay in 1898, and died of tuberculosis December 4, 1911. Oscar was also a musician and played with his nephew Clarence's (son of Daniel) band, the Joyland Revellers, after Clarence's death in 1933. Rodolphe had three other daughters, possibly by Clementine, named Edna, Lucille, and Jeanne (born about 1893).^[1][3]

The "Louisiana Outrages", as illustrated in Harper's Weekly, 1874.

Rodolphe attended law courses at Straight University in the early 1870s^[1] and graduated with a Bachelors of Law from Straight University in the spring of 1882.^[4] In the early 1870s, he was a member of the New Orleans Police Department. In 1874, under the command of former Confederate General and then adjutant general of the Louisiana Militia James Longstreet, Desdunes was among the injured in the Battle of Liberty Place fought between the pro-Republican city, state, and federal forces and a pro-Democratic largely ex-Confederate group called the White League.^[1] His experience stuck with him and he remained a strong supporter of the rights and honors due to the black veterans of the United States Civil War.^[5]

Political and civil service

Desdunes was appointed in 1879 as secretary of the parish vice committee vice upon the resignation of Charles A. Baquie.,^[6] was an active member of the Odd Fellows, and translated rituals of his lodge, La Creole into French.^[7] Also, he was a member of Lodge Amite Sincere No. 27.^[1] He was a member of the Republican Committee until 1900,^[1] and In 1891 he was elected secretary of the Republican state central committee in Louisiana.^[8] He was a frequent contributor to Republican politics, In 1892, he was a speaker in Louisiana Republican organizational rally where blacks were called to support more moderate candidates with strong Louisiana ties.^[9] In 1897, Desdunes activity included the support of Louisiana State Senator Henry Demas, denouncing lynching, calling for more schools, opposing the poll tax, and denouncing the constitutional convention which he felt sought to deprive black suffrage^[10] which eventually was included in the 1898 Louisiana Constitution as Article 197.

Image of Algernon Sidney Badger during the Civil War

From 1870 to 1885, he worked for the U.S. Customs Service in New Orleans as a messenger and as a clerk. He also worked at the Customs office from 1891 to 1896 and from 1899 to 1912.^[1] In 1880, Desdunes was appointed assistant cashier of the New Orleans Customhouse by Collector Algernon Sidney Badger.^[11] In 1891 Desdunes was appointed chief clerk of the sub treasury in New Orleans.^[12]

In 1908, as a part of his Customs department duties, Desdunes was supervising the weighing of cargo on a ship when granite dust blew into his eyes, blinding him. He retired the following year and moved to Omaha, Nebraska to live with his son, Daniel.^[1]

Civil rights activism

In the 1870s, Desdunes became involved in the pro-black rights Young Men's Progressive Association. As part of the Compromise of 1877, federal troop presence in southern states greatly declined, allowing white supremacists in the south to endeavor to suppress black rights. In 1878, the association, with Desdunes then an officer and Thomas J. Boswell president, were active the condemnation of lynchings in response to the killing of dozens of blacks in Louisiana in the 1870s, pointing to Daniel Hill and Herman Bell of Ouachita Parish, Commodore Smallwood, Charles Carrol, John Higgins, and Washington Hill of Concordia Parish, Charles Bethel, Robert Williams, Munday Hill, James Stafford, Louis Postlewait, and William Henry of the Tensas Parish.^[13]

In 1884, Rodolphe and his brother, Aristide, as well as Paul Trévigne, Arthur Estèves, and Louis André Martinet as a part of a group called L'Union Louisiannais reopenned the Couvent School, both Desdunes brothers serving on the board of directors and Rodolphe teaching.^[14] In 1887, a French-language weekly paper was produced in New Orleans under the same name (L'Union Louisiannais) with Eugene Lucy (president), Homer Plessy (Vice President), Rodolphe Desdunes (recording secretary and solicitor), Pierre Chevalier (treasurer), and O. Bart (solicitor).^[15] In 1889, Martinet formed the Republican newspaper, the Crusader, and Desdunes was a frequent contributor. Writing in both French and English, the Crusader took up the civil rights cause. He was a part of the American Citizens' Equal Rights Association of Louisiana in 1890, protesting to the state assembly against legislation which gave blacks second class status.^[16] He also wrote for other papers in Louisiana, such as the Business Herald in Donaldsonville, Louisiana in 1904.^[17]

Comité des Citoyens

Marker placed at Press and Royal Streets in New Orleans on February 12, 2009, commemorating the arrest of Homer Plessy on June 7, 1892, for violating the Louisiana 1890 Separate Car Act

Desdunes was incensed by the 1890 Separate Car Act, writing in an 1891 letter to the editor in the Crusader, "Among the many schemes devised by the Southern statesman to divide the races, none is so audacious and so insulting as the one which provides separate cars for black and white people on the railroads running through the state. It is like a slap in the face of every member of the black race, whether he has the full measure or only one-eighth of that blood."^[18] Aristide, Rodolphe and Daniel Desdunes, Louis Martinet, Eugene Luscy, Paul Bonseigneur, L. J. Joubert, P. B. S. Pinchback, Caesar Antoine, Homer Plessy and others formed the Comité des Citoyens to organize black civil rights efforts. Rodolphe enlisted his eldest son, Daniel, to violate the act to allow for its challenge in the courts. On February 24, 192, Daniel boarded a train bound for Mobile, Alabama. While stopped at the corner of Elysian Fields and Claiborne in New Orleans, Daniel was arrested. However, Judge John Howard Ferguson ruled that the Separate Car Act could not be enforced for interstate travel because the constitution only granted the federal government the authority to regulate inter-state travel and commerce. The Comité then challenged the law again, this time focusing on intrastate travel and Plessy volunteered to break the law.^[1] Luscy, Bonseignure, Rodolphe Desdunes, Joubert, and Martinet secured Plessy's release on bail that same day.^[19] When the case, Plessy vs. Ferguson, finally reached the U. S. Supreme Court in 1896, it was found the Plessy's rights had not been violated, Desdunes writing, "our defeat sanctioned the odious principle of the segregation of the races." Comité des Citoyens activists Albion Tourgee and James C. Walker defended in both cases. About that time the Comité and the Crusader both disbanded.^[1]

Historian and poet

Desdunes was very interested in the history and art of Creoles in Louisiana. From July through October 1895, Desdunes published translated excerpts from Joseph Saint-Rémy’s five volume work, Pétion et Haïti, for the New Orleans Crusader.^[14] Just before losing his sight, Desdunes finished a book about the contribution of Creoles to Louisiana history, Nos Hommes et Notre Histoire, which was published in Quebec in 1911. In the book, Desdunes uses personal reminiscences and scholarly biography to explore the lives of remarkable men in letters, fine arts, music, war, peace, and teaching. The story starts with the role of free black soldiers under General Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812 and continues to explore the contribution of creoles to Louisiana and to the United States. It contrasts this with the hatred, contempt, and injustice that were facd by the men described and all blacks faced. In this way, Desdunes' work follows the example of La Campagne De 1814-15 by Hippolyte Castra, a commonality that Desdunes points out by including Castra and Castra's activities in his book. The introduction of the original edition was written by Louis Martin.^[21]

In Omaha, he continued to work on his poetry, submitting his work to various outlets. He also became close to others in the Omaha black community, particularly Father John Albert Williams, who praised Desdunes as "Omaha's Blind Negro Poet" in the Omaha World-Herald.^[22] His poems in the Herald included praise for black soldiers serving in World War I, "To the French High Commission (Hommage de la population de couleur.)", and a tribute to Nebraska entitled "Aksarben, Eloge", both of which appeared in 1917.^[23]

Death

He lived in his own house in Omaha with his wife, and died on August 14, 1928 of cancer of the larynx. His remains were sent to New Orleans and he was interred in a family tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 2.^[1]

References

Further reading

• Thompson, Shirley Elizabeth. Exiles at Home: The Struggle to Become American in Creole New Orleans. Harvard University Press, 2009