Louisiana Historical Association

Coming June 24 from our friends at Louisiana's Old State Capitol.

Exhibition Opening Ceremony!

Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2026

Doors at 4:30 p.m. | Keynote at 5 p.m.

Admission: Free (reserve a spot here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/exhibition-opening-ceremony-louisianas-old-state-capitol-tickets-1990500013122

Continue your Louisiana Purchase journey at the opening ceremony of "Excursions, Expeditions, and 'Discoveries:' A Young Nation Expands" and "Reimagining America: The Maps of Lewis & Clark."

Through historic narratives and contemporary photography created in collaboration with LSU students, Louisiana's Old State Capitol reimagines what it means to discover, document, and remember a changing nation.

PLUS! Historian and award-winning author, Alexander Mikaberidze, will speak at 5 p.m. on the Louisiana Purchase and its impact on America. He will shed a light on the less-acknowledged history of the transaction, which cost the U.S. billions of dollars and displaced Native peoples—who actually owned the land.

EXHIBITION OPENING CEREMONY - Louisiana's Old State Capitol Reimagine what it means to discover, document, and remember a changing nation.

In the latest edition of Louisiana History... "'Mobster Emeritus': The FBI, Carlos Marcello, and the Imagined Structures of Organized Crime in New Orleans, 1950–1985," by Dexter Babin II. The piece reexamines the FBI’s decades-long pursuit of Carlos Marcello by showing how federal investigators forced an imaginary structure onto the New Orleans underworld. Drawing on newly declassified FBI files, it argues that Marcello was not a traditional Mafia boss, but rather the product of a unique local underworld shaped by political machines, gambling interests, and East Coast gangsters. (Image: Federal Bureau of Investigation's chart of American Mafia Bosses across the country in 1963. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/CommissionChart1963.jpg)

"Forgetting the Fall: Violence, Voter Suppression, and the End of Reconstruction in Tensas Parish, Louisiana," by John David Miles, is available in the current edition of "Louisiana History." According to the author, "Forgetting the Fall" reconstructs the events of October 1878, in which a campaign of voter intimidation overthrew Republican governance in a majority-Black, northern Louisiana parish. Armed white Democrats systematically terrorized Black residents, killing at least fourteen people, to secure electoral victory and silence Black political leadership, such as preacher Alfred Fairfax. The article further traces how successive local histories, a Lost Cause novel, and WPA-era accounts obscured or reframed these stories, revealing how racial violence is strategically forgotten, and how forgetting itself is an instrument of white supremacist ideology.

More than a century of photos of Shreveport-Bossier will beis on display in the exhibit “Thurman C. Smith: A Photographic Legacy,” which runs through June 5 at the Northwest Louisiana Archives.

CFP The Jamie & Thelma Guilbeau University of Louisiana at Lafayette Collections Research Grant

To promote the use of research collections housed at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the Department of History, Geography, and Philosophy and the Guilbeau Center for Public History are pleased to announce the Jamie and Thelma Guilbeau UL Lafayette Collections Research Grant in the amount of $2,000 for a researcher who is NOT A faculty member, staff member, or student at UL Lafayette. Proposals should indicate promise of publication or reaching a broad audience in some other form and require work in the collections of the University Archives and Acadiana Manuscripts Collections, the Ernest J. Gaines Center, the Cajun and Creole Music Collection, the Center for Louisiana Studies, or in other UL Lafayette collections. The grant is intended primarily to defray travel expenses; therefore preference will be given to researchers beyond commuting distance of UL Lafayette. Particular consideration will be given to applications that speak broadly to Louisiana and its histories, heritages, cultures, and identities.

Faculty, graduate students, independent scholars, and artists are encouraged to apply. To be considered, please send a cover letter, a current CV of no more than three pages, a 500-750-word prospectus describing the research project and identifying the collections to be used, and, if a graduate student, a letter of support from a thesis or dissertation advisor. By accepting the award, the recipient agrees to make a public presentation of their work that has been informed by the research, provide a copy of the presentation for deposit at the University, and produce a brief written report describing the results. Should the research lead to scholarly presentation or publication, the UL Lafayette depository requests a copy, and the Jamie and Thelma Guilbeau UL Lafayette Collections Research Grant be acknowledged.

The deadline for applications is May 1, 2026. The winner of the grant will be announced May 15, 2026. Research may be conducted any time between July 1, 2026, and June 30, 2027.

Send all application materials to:

Michael S. Martin, Chair
Jamie Guilbeau and Thelma Guilbeau UL Lafayette
Collections Research Awards Committee
[email protected]

Passing this along...

LECTURE SERIES: BECOMING LOUISIANA

Upcoming Lecture: The Africans

Date: March 24, 2026
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Location: Louisiana State Archives

The Friends of the Louisiana State Archives and the Friends of the Old State Capitol are excited to invite you to the next lecture in the Becoming Louisiana series: "The Africans," given by Chancellor John K. Pierre.

Becoming Louisiana is an ambitious historical exploration tracing the many origins that converged to create the Louisiana we know today and will continue to become.

We hope to see you there! Free admission: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/becoming-louisiana-the-africans-presented-by-freddie-pitcher-jr

Here's the program for the Phi Alpha Theta National History Honor Society Louisiana Regional Meeting, which will be held next week in conjunction with the Louisiana Historical Association meeting in Lafayette.

The Garnie W. McGinty Lifetime Meritorious Service Award was established in 1990 to recognize members of the Louisiana Historical Association who, over the length of their careers, have made significant contributions to scholarship in Louisiana history, to the historical profession in Louisiana, and/or to the Association.

The selection committee solicits nominations for those whose service to the field of Louisiana history and to the Louisiana Historical Association warrants recognition. Please send nominations to [email protected] by February 25, 2026.

McGinty Winners - Louisiana Historical Association