The Ballad of Robert Charles

Searching for the New Orleans Riot of 1900

By: K. Stephen Prince

Narrated by: Ryan Vincent Anderson

For a brief moment in the summer of 1900, Robert Charles was arguably the most infamous Black man in the United States. After an altercation with police on a New Orleans street, Charles killed two police officers and fled. During a manhunt that extended for days, violent White mobs roamed the city, assaulting African Americans and killing at least half a dozen. When authorities located Charles, he held off a crowd of thousands for hours before being shot to death. The notorious episode was reported nationwide; years later, fabled jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton recalled memorializing Charles in song. Yet today, Charles is almost entirely invisible in the traditional historical record. So who was Robert Charles, really? An outlaw? A Black freedom fighter? And how can we reconstruct his story?

In this fascinating work, K. Stephen Prince sheds fresh light on both the history of the Robert Charles riots and the practice of history-writing itself. He reveals evidence of intentional erasures, both in the ways the riot and its aftermath were chronicled and in the ways stories were silenced or purposefully obscured. But Prince also excavates long-hidden facts from the narratives passed down by White and Black New Orleanians over more than a century. In so doing, he probes the possibilities and limitations of the historical imagination.

©2021 The University of North Carolina Press (P)2021 Audible, Inc.

hidden gem 💎

im glad I read this book as I continue to read history im even more concerned about our country's future I pray we all get over all our differences and understand that we are more alike than different.

A beautifully written, outstanding book

A difficult subject that was beautifully framed by the author. He was able to bring to life a variety of individuals that made this story relevant with great context. Most white Americans don't appreciate or understand the struggles of African-Americans in post civil war America. The Robert Charles story is a microcosm of life in this community at the turn of the 20th century. I highly recommend this book.

Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen.

As a psychiatrist, I find a notable lack of facts about Robert Charles personal history and pre-shootout history. But the author writes as if we should omit the subjects personal early life experiences and make his murderous impulses simply based on a reaction to "racism". This is naive on author's part. In short, to understand any person you need the impact of nature and environment. WE really have only R.C.'s sense of racial injustice and essentially nothing else.Not everyone choses a gun or fantasies about "back to Africa" to cope with unfairness. And R.C. solved nothing but how he was to die. Do we need a monument to encourage others to follow his suicidal example? The author does not truly know R.C. beyond lots of speculation--and that is a lot of thin ice.

Never forget

Great story telling and even better research. Here is so much history and relatable info in this story. This story that they have tried to erase for over a century.