The bend in the Mississippi River is why New Orleans is famously called "The Crescent City." 

Drawings and paintings from the 1800s show travelers watching the exciting action of the port. People came from miles around to watch the dockers loading and unloading cargo while singing shanteys. According to the journals of foreign travelers, the boisterous and sometimes unruly draymen were always a source of entertainment for onlookers. Hoping to contribute to their household finances, local women set up food stalls amongst the backdrop of the smokestacks, cotton bales, and other goods waiting transport to one of the many warehouses along the levee.

Today, guard shacks and barrier gates keep out anyone not associated with the business of the port. One wonders if the workers of today think about the history of the ground that they toil on. So many important moments occurred on that famous bend. One of which was vital to both the labor movement and race relations after the end of the Civil War.

Competition for work on the quay was exceptionally stiff after the end of the Civil War. White workers fought to keep their livelihoods while Black longshoremen, employable at cheaper rates than their white counterparts, fought to attain the security that gainful employment brings.

On December 21, 1865, newspapers reported a site never before seen on the levee. As the White screwmen strikers downed their tools and disembarked the ships, the Black workers followed suit and joined them marching along the levee.

It was a historic moment; the first time since the end of the Civil War that New Orleans witnessed an alliance between White and Black laborers. New Orleans Mayor Hugh Kennedy said that “I thought it an indication of progress when the white laborers and negroes on the levees the other day made a strike for higher wages. They marched up the levee in a long procession, white and black together…”

Due to safety concerns, the Port of New Orleans cordoned off the bend in the river where the first interracial protest took place. Tourists can view the site from the Vue Orleans outdoor observation deck, 34 floors above New Orleans.

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The location of the Screwmen's Benevolent Association's meeting hall changed a few times over the decades. Contemporary newspapers made references to areas instead of specific addresses. Because the readers knew the layout of the city, a general reference to where a building was located often sufficed. The only concrete location I could find is on a Sanborn Fire Insurance map from 1876.

At this site the Screwmen’s Benevolent Association members gathered to discuss wages, working conditions, and disputes with employers along the New Orleans waterfront. Meetings likely also included the everyday business of the society, from collecting dues and assisting sick or injured members to providing financial support for widows and families of deceased screwmen.

The meeting hall was located at the corner of Exchange Place and Bienville. The map shows that the three-and-a-half story meeting hall was a brick building with wooden frame construction on the two outer walls, indicating that there was a porch surrounding sides of the building facing both Exchange Place and Bienville Streets.

In 1929 the Monteleone Hotel bought the building from the Screwmen’s Benevolent Association for $21,000. The Monteleone family tore the building down. The hotel still owns this corner of the landscape. They constructed a parking garage where the Screwmen's Benevolent Association meeting hall once stood.

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The Louisiana Hose House was located on the corner of Carondelet and Perdido Streets. It was a large, two-story brick fire station with a composition roof and wooden construction around the back. The façade of the Louisiana Hose Company featured an elliptical arch entrance for the station’s steam fire engine. A beautiful, columned octagonal cupola surmounted the fire house. The Louisiana Hose Company shared a wall with a wagon repository.

In December 1865, a meeting at the Louisiana Hose House, at the corner of Carondelet and Perdido Streets, brought together shipmasters and stevedores frustrated by a strike of New Orleans screwmen. The screwmen, who compressed cotton into ships’ holds, had walked off the job demanding higher wages. Shipmasters complained that the demands were excessive, while stevedores argued that the workers had given no warning, leaving them unable to fulfill shipping contracts negotiated at the old wage rates. The screwmen saw things differently. Unpredictable employment often left them working only two or three days a week, even during their busiest season. Higher wages, they argued, were a necessity. The meeting at the Hose House revealed a growing conflict between waterfront workers and their employers, one that would shape labor relations along the New Orleans waterfront for decades.

The dispute at the Louisiana Hose House reflected a conflict that remains familiar today. Employers worried about rising labor costs and disrupted business, while workers struggled with unpredictable hours and wages that made earning a living difficult. More than 160 years later, the same questions persist: What constitutes a fair wage, who bears the burden of economic uncertainty, and how much power should workers have in determining the conditions of their employment? The three blocks across the street housed numerous cotton businesses, a testament to the importance of the cotton trade in New Orleans. Hotels, boarding houses, repair shops, office buildings, Wells Fargo, and the Louisiana State Lottery buildings were a part of the neighborhood. 

Today, the area houses as much a variety of businesses as it did 175 years ago. The streets are no longer cobbled as they were in the 19th century. The landscape has changed from the bottom up; modern paved roads surround the foundations for a variety of buildings. The beautifully engineered Louisiana Hose House is no longer there. It its place is the Hancock Whitney Center, home to the Whitney Hancock bank and financial center.

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It's not difficult to picture- young men milling outside along the streets. Everyone would want to know which regiment and company their friends and neighbors were assigned to, where training will take place, and who their officers are. Today, many of these details might be shared by text message or social media post. But during the outset of the Civil War, word-of-mouth or letters would inform friends and family members of one's assignment.

Before the Civil War, an armory stood at 14 Canal Street, a site connected to both New Orleans’ screwmen and the city's military history.

The building housed the Cook and Brother Confederate Armory, established by two English brothers who manufactured Enfield-style rifles and bayonets for the Confederacy. The operation was short-lived, relocating to Athens, Georgia, in 1862.

During the Civil War, members of the Screwmen’s Guard, a military company associated with the city's waterfront workers, gathered here to discuss their deployment into Confederate service. Decades later, in 1898, the armory served as a recruiting center for volunteers during the Spanish-American War.

Today, the original building is gone, and no known photographs survive. The surrounding area has changed dramatically, leaving little to suggest the site's military past.

Although nothing remains of the armory itself, this stretch of Canal Street once played a role in two American wars and in the history of the screwmen who worked along New Orleans’ busy waterfront.

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On December 23, 1865, just two days after Black and White Screwmen put down their screws and enjoined in dockside protest against working conditions and wages, 600 longshoremen met on corner of Tchoupitoulas and Thalia Streets. Their goal was to unify and further their protest of working conditions and to demand a wage increase. Most of these port workers lived in this neighborhood, and as the neighborhoods in New Orleans had a strong sense of community, it made sense that they would gather where they lived.

The intersection where 600 waterfront workers once gathered has disappeared beneath a transformed landscape of highways and parking lots. Today, people experiencing homelessness seek shelter on the same ground where Black and White laborers once stood together demanding better lives. The people and circumstances have changed, but the questions of economics, opportunity, and human dignity remain.

Thalia and Tchoupitoulas Streets no longer intersect. Thalia Street diverts to the left and ends as a parking lot behind a series of small businesses. Today’s road system is more complicated, with multiple interchanges, grade separations, and green spaces where Thalia Street used to meet with Tchoupitoulas Street. It is impossible to imagine 600 dockworkers flooding through the grid-like streets at Christmas of 1865 to organize a labor strike.

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Imagine being so fearful for your life that your only chance to save yourself is to jump into a powerful river--even though you can't swim.

Despite the vandalism experienced on October 26, 1894, agents expected Black screwmen to continue loading cotton with borrowed tools. Although shipping bosses appealed to Mayor John Fitzgerald and the chief of police to provide protection, only 10 men showed up to work. The rest stayed away due to the large number of White screwmen lurking in the vicinity. The few Black men who decided to resume working would regret it. 

Around 2:30 on the afternoon of October 27, members of the Screwmen's Benevolent Association, armed with Winchester rifles and stones, initiated a violent attack on the Black screwmen who gathered on the quay. The White screwmen made no effort to conceal their crimes. They fired more than 100 rounds while the policemen stood "idly by, like interested spectators."

Reports claim that the mob, "swooped down on the negroes with imprecations on thier lips and the desire for blood in their hearts." There was a large, open space at the head of First Street where the Delano was docked. It was in this area where the Black screwmen rushed off the ship and tried to find safety. Reporters from the Times Picayune describe them being "followed by a howling mob, who were indiscriminately shooting in all directions."

Men had no other choice but to dive off the deck of the ship, drowning in the rushing waters below. Randolph Blackwell was shot in the leg, arm, and thigh. Andrew Holmes, a Black man, 40 years of age, attempted to flee from the scene "at a good run" when White screwmen "emtied their pistols at him."

It is unknown how many Black screwmen jumped overboard and drowned. The newspaper stated that, "We won't know until the [river] gives up its dead."

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It was relatively easy for members of the Screwmen's Benevolent Association to gain the monopoly on their trade. They were, after all, truly indispensable. After the end of the Civil War, however, it became much harder for them to remain at the top. They now had competition from Black screwmen, a group comprised of freedmen and free men of color. The fight reached a fever pitch in October 1894 when stevedores had no choice but to employ Black screwmen because there were not enough White screwmen to fulfill contracts with the shipmasters. Little did anyone know that after the raid on these ships, the violence would only get worse.

White screwmen swiftly and quietly overpowered the watchmen stationed in front of the Constance, a steamship moored at the head of Seventh Street. While they held the watchmen at gunpoint, the rest of the men boarded the ship and threw overboard every tool that the Black screwmen needed to do their work, including ninety-six screwjacks. The 170-pound screw jacks were the Black screwmen’s guarantee that they could provide for their families. The screw jack represented food on their children's plates and a roof over their heads. As their tools disappeared beneath the dark, muddy waters, so did their relative financial security. 

As White screwmen raided the Constance, more men boarded the Oceanian, docked at the head of Sixth Street, the Castledale, docked at the head of Fifth Street, the Lord Erne, docked at the head of Third Street, and the Delano, docked at the head of First Street. Members of the Screwmen's Benevolent Association conducted a very calculated and coordinated attack on the livelihoods of Black screwmen. 

Every square inch of New Orleans is steeped in history, even spaces that aren't officially recognized as historic areas. This is especially true of the stretch of land along the riverfront.

The drive down Tchoupitoulas along the Mississippi isn't particularly breathtaking. In fact, it's anything but. Unlike the Garden District, no mansions resembling tiered, frosted wedding cakes peak out from behind splendid oak trees, hibiscuses, or bougainvillea. No brightly colored shotgun houses with gingerbread house-styled woodwork brighten up the morning commute.

Instead, a long, grey weather-worn floodwall blocks all views of the Mississippi River. What's on the other side of the wall isn't visually stimulating either. Industrial warehouses and acres of shipping containers are hardly a feast for the eyes. But in this case, it's not the physical that is valuable. Knowing what happened beyond the wall has intrinsic value and provides a tangible connection with our history. The stories that emerge contribute to our broader understanding of our shared past.

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A city adapts and adjusts to the growth of industry and each decade of change that it brings. As such, street names and building numbers change over the decades and centuries. In 1850, present-day Royal Street was named Casa Calvo. Jonte Equen’s home was at 51 Casa Calvo, which is now 300 Royal Street.

On November 18, 1850, after a long day compressing cotton bales into the holds of ships, 121 New Orleans screwmen gathered at the Royal Street home of Jonte Equen, near the Marigny neighborhood. They came to discuss forming an organization that would provide mutual aid, relief, and protection for men working one of the waterfront’s most demanding jobs.

Around November 25, 1850, eleven screwmen met to draft the bylaws of the Screwmen’s Benevolent Association and Equen’s home certainly continued to serve as an early gathering place for the organization.

Made up primarily of Irish and German immigrants, the association offered members support during illness, injury, and other hardships. It eventually became one of New Orleans’ most powerful labor organizations and helped establish organized labor on the city’s waterfront.

Equen’s home marks an important chapter in New Orleans labor history, when a group of waterfront workers came together to look after one another.

The home has long since been torn down and, is now a mid-1800s Greek Revival building with Creole commercial features. a wrought iron balcony located on the second floor, and the Royal Praline Company as a front facing tenant. Situated on the corner of Bienville and Royal Streets, the inside of the building is a far cry from what it must have been when it was Jonte Equen’s home. Bright and cheerful with large, tiled floors and yellow walls, the room boasts colorful confectionary; New Orleans’ delicacies such as beignet mix, chicory coffee, and of course, pralines. No one would ever guess that the first and strongest union in the South organized their association at the site where the Royal Praline Company now sits.

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