so we're going to in here new orleans, 1895. she's beautiful in shape up here on the screen. bustling city. it's a city on the make. nearly two decades since thend of reconstruction, a decade after the world's fair ce to town, which was a financial

disaster, as we discusd. but it nevertless introduced new orleans. its architect, to its literature, its food, and, of course, mardi gras to a new tourist economy. the 1890s, the dawn of the so-called progressive era, a time of urban progress. when the public transportation network of streetcars became electrified, when the city's new sewerage and water board began constructing modern sewage and tap water systems. new orleans is port, as you can see here, bustles during this period. welcome. thousands of immigrants from sicily, from central america and beyond, as well as traffic picking cotton and coffee across the globe. new orleans is a city on the move. and as new orleans steams

towards the 20th century, things were looking up literally. the city's first skyscraper was erected. in 1895. this is the henan building. a whopping ten stories tall, big for the time. visitors used to pay $0.10 to climb up to the top and watch the city roll by. it stands on the corner of common and carondelet street. it's now an apartment complex. new orleans was looking upwards towards the sky. in other ways, during this period, raising monument after monument after monument to the former confederate ac. starting with this massive column on saint charles avenue, dedicated to confederate general robert e lee. in 1884.

rising over 68 feet high, atop, stood and over life size. 16 and a half feet tall. statue of general lee, who we should note, never likely visited the city of new orleans. like similar statues built during this era, throughout the south, the general faced north. symbolically watching and waiting to greet another potential invasion from american union forces. statues like these covered the city as well as every town and city throughout the southern united states. cities, of course, had the largest statues like these seen here, both in new orleans, the first dedicated to jefferson davis, president of the confederacy, during the civil war that was erected in 1911. and the second dedicated to new

orleans born general beauregard ford, who ordered the first cannonhots fired to start the civil war. that statue was raised in 1915. in smaller towns, statues to the confederacy looked and often still look just like this. memorials to a nameless, nondescript confederate soldier. this one on the screen was erected in 1886 in baton rouge. soon after the conservative redeemer democratic forces that ran the state successfully fought to remove the capital out of new orleans. why did they remove the capital from new orleans to baton rouge? it's because new orleans represented the highest black population in the state. a black population with newfound

power, voting power. over 770 statues like this were erected throughout the south, many resembling this one alone soldier standing on a pedestal, always placed in a prominent site or building. city hall. a town courthouse house. a town square. those 770 plus statues made up over 1500 public symbols dedicate added to the confederacy statues, monuments, roads, schools, buildings, bridges, plaques, military bases, parks. they joined the confederate flag, which flew just about everywhere throughout the south. the vast majority of this 1500 were dedicated between. the 1890s and the 1950s, matching up exactly with the era

of jim crow segregation brought on by the supreme court's 1896 plessy versus ferguson, ruling that we talked about a few weeks ago, which of course, originated here in new orleans. these 1500 memorials were just that much memorials to the dead and the defeated south. but they also acted as symbols built to strike fear into the souls of black americans. these were massive totems. everywhere you looked, everywhere you walked in a town or city, massive totems erected to reclaim public spaces as places solely for white america and arguably the most offensive of these monuments. any of these monuments razed

during this period in new orleans, or arguably throughout the south, was this one which was built in 1891. it was dedicated to the battle of liberty place, which we spoke about a few weeks ago. the battle of liberty place was, of course, that violent 1874 coup. you might remember, led by parra military forces to suppress black voting rights by overthrowing louisiana's democratic elected progressive republican government. at the time. this was as come on in. this was done. that statue was raised as a later inscription that you can see on the screen, as a later inscription added to the monument, made clear in the name of white supremacy. but despite all of these forces

pulling white and black, new orleanians, white and black southerners apart, there were moments of real hope in the city. and for that, we need to look not up, but down, down to the city's docks. look at the lives of the workers, the laborersho did the work on those docks, loading and offloading cargo ships. today's lecture will cover the upnd down fortunes of new orleans and new orleanians by looking up and looking down, up at the sky. as we just have been down at the city's docks and down at a lowly tropical fruit, and how all of this was intertwined symbolically at the turn of the

century. this photograph, taken in 1891, shows dockworkers readying giant bales of cotn for loading onto boats and shipping all over the world. the 1890s marked the beginnings of organized labor unions on these docks, also on local and naonal level these labor unions allied and assisted each other in fighting for better, safer, fairer working conditions. labor unions during this progreive era popularized what we call strikes that is mass organized work stoppages, refusals to work. and these strikes were in order to push corporations and their bosses. those with the wealth and the

power to give in to the strikers, the workers demands and. on october 24th, 1892, between two and 3000 members of three separate unions in new orleans, workers in a variety of trades decided to strike as one as a single unit. their demands were a ten hour work day, overtime pay and preference, all hiring for union members over non union members. by november of that year, 46 additional unions in the city representing over. 30,000 laborers join in this general strike.

this made up this 30,000 made up half of the city's workforce at the time. these men, and they were mostly men, worked in just about every trade that makes a city run, that makes the city operate on a daily basis. they didn't just work the docks, but they were street car drivers, factory workers and all types of factories. delivery men, construction workers as street cleaners, firefighters. they were the men, the workers who made sure that the city's gas and electrical systems worked. a never. on november 8th because of this strike. the city's gas and electrical systems failed and new orleans was plunged into darkness. history remem members this

strike as the 1892 general strike which was the largest up till then strike in the nation's history. and that happened here in new orleans. now, what's so important to note about this strike beyond its size is that black and white workers went on strike together in solidarity. and this was during jim crow. we have to remember. many, most unions during this period were themselves racially segregated. there was a white dockworkers union and a black dockworkers union. despite separate unions, black

and white men worked together on the docks and in all those other many of those other sectors i mentioned earlier. that not only worked together, but as a union, as a group, they would vote together. and during this massive general strike of 1892, they went on strike together. and throughout this massive strike, the 1892 general strike, the people in charge, the men in power, did their best to racially separate the black and white unions, black and white laborers who were on strike. they attempted to sow discord by appealing to racial hatred. newspapers, which were at the time, generally unfriendly to unions and union labor, told

false, often lurid tales of mobs of black strikers assaulting white individuals across new orleans. newspapers spread stories that black workers wanted to take over the government of the city. these were scare tactics. and these scare tactics failed. the strike did not break. the louisiana governor ordered the state militia to new orleans on november 10th, and the state militia arrived in the city thinking they were going to find riots, chaos. but they found a city at calm, at peace, in the dark.

but people helping each other, feeding each other's families when they're not getting paid during this strike. the strike eventually ended, ended by midnight, november of that year, with employers agreeing to two of the strikers, most important demands. a ten hour work day, which was a treat. back then, right now, think of an eight hour work day as kind of the maximum limits. ten hour work day was what they were fighting for. right. and also overtime pay for the first time for many of these workers. the but those in power continued to try to break the unions by separating again, white and black workers in the city.

they tried to fear through appeals to racial hatred and by what in labor terms, is a practice called the race to the bottom. the race to the bottom. now, the race to the bottom is a practice where the pay of a group of workers is cut in order to force competing groups who are not working at the time to work for less. so you're continually cutting the base pay for workers, hungry workers? well, always the thinking would go go towards that lower pay rate. for instance. they would fire a group of unionized white workers and replace them with non unionized black workers, paying them less.

and this happened. that's exactly what happened in 1895, 300 white union members were fired from their jobs in the city and replaced with black union and with black union workers. this happened on the docks of new orleans. members of this 300 now jobless union, these angry, now angry white dockworkers retaliated by killing six men on the docks of new orleans. local unions went on the defensive. organizing in 1901 to adhere to what they called the 5050 or the half half system.

now, the 50, 50 or half have system did just what it says it would do. every workforce would have an equal number, 5050 of black workers and white workers. and so if we could go back in time to this picture right, taken around this period, turn of the century, we can do kind of a demographic count of the workers loading and unloading. we'll talk about what they're unloading and in a second. right. this product from boats. we could do a count, a head count, and we'd see it should adhere to this 50, 50 half, half system, half black, half white. these were mixed race. these were un segregated work crews. black and white unions mostly remain united despite continued

efforts throughout the 20th century to racially divide them. the half half system was something that the black and white unions devised themselves, and this was important that labor strikes were not as prominent or massive as that 1892 general strike. this was important. it was important to workers, but it was really more important to the bosses. they really wanted to appeal to the workers at the turn of the century because the fortunes of the city were changing once again, the fortunes of the port of new orleans were dramatically shifting, and that shift was precipitated by a new commodity. and can we guess what that new commodity was that is entering the ports of new orleans around the turn of the century. someone say it bananas. we can see them here. okay.

bananas. so to talk about bananas, we have to talk about this man inter. samuel z. murray, who soon became known as sam the banana man, and who has heard of sam's memory or sam the banana man. okay. some good. definitely a character flaw in the history of new orleans. sam's memory was born in 1877, in what was then the far out reaches of the russian empire. in the present day nation of moldova. now sam's main goal in life growing up, like so many jewish individuals living in russia during this period. this is my people. this might be some of your people. the main goal was to get the heck out of russia.

okay. because russia was a place of widespread anti-semitic ism. the main choices for samson, murray and jewish russian immigrants was europe or the united states. europe, as the world would soon find out in a couple of decades, would not be the best of choices. sam chose. luckily for him, the united states. he landed in new york city in 1891. he was a young teenager. he eventually headed down south landing once again in selma, alabama. selma, alabama, a place very famous. during civil rights. later civil rights era. so sam's memory young teen lands in selma, alabama. he goes there because he has an uncle living there.

and he's he's a young guy. he's trying to just like eke out an existence. he's trying to survive day to day. he doesn't know what he wants to do. he just wants to eat and live to the next day. right. at some point, while living in selma, though young sam, this is perhaps an apocryphal story. did it take place? maybe sam's memory like to tell this story, though. so it has gone down in history as sam's story. sam's story is that at some point, as a young man in selma, alabama, he encounter heard his first banana. now, okay. okay, now, look, bananas are common, right? they're too common. they're so common that if we forget a banana in our backpack or our bag, you know, the worse thing is that it rots and gets things gooey. right. but to lose a banana is not a big deal. right? they are plentiful.

they're omnipresent. there's just. we are we live lives unless we're allergic to bananas. we live lives. we're just covered in bananas. right. whether we love them or hate them, there's bananas everywhere. my eight month olds favorite food. you can guess bananas. he has to have a banana a day. he just loves it. he eats it. we put bananas and everything else. he eats bananas. okay. sam eats his first banana and his mind is blown. okay. the world changes. what is this? tropical fruit. bananas back then. not common. not something you'd see every day. there were, you know, you wouldn't go to the market and grocery store and buy bananas. okay. they were rare. they were just coming to the united states. so sam encounters and eats his first banana. he falls in love, and he more or less dedicated his life to bananas. as strange as that sounds.

bananas common. now? not so much. then we got to remember that. in 1895, the murray moved to mobile, alabama. mobile, alabama, then was the closest port city to selma, alabama, a port city back then meant bananas. bananas would come in via the port and end up wherever. bananas ended up throughout the united states. sam quickly learned that bananas have an inherent banana problem. what is the problem with bananas. they who they rot, right? they ripen too fast. they turn brown, they turn sticky, they turn to goo. right. gross and a accord thing to lure

samson. murray began picking up loose brown two ripe bananas along the docks of mobile, alabama, tossed off bananas, bananas that were worthless to the main purveyor, the main shipper of bananas into this pour into the port of mobile. he began picking up, collecting these bananas probably eating a few of them himself. and he sold them for cheaper then the market's yellow bananas. the fresh bananas. by the age of 21, samson, murray was specializing in the overripe banana trade. he had a 100 grand, $100,000 in his bank account, or around ¥3.5 million dollars today from

selling overripe brown bananas. in 1903. he joined forces with the united fruit company. the united fruit company was a big player on the banana scene for sure, but really in the tropical produce import business in the united states. when sam's memory links up with the united fruit. united fruit is headquartered in boston, massachusetts, a port city, yes, but far away from the places where bananas were being grown. central america. specifically, costa rica, is where united fruit was doing most of their business in the early days.

so murray links up with united fruit and expands the banana business. united fruit banana business from costa rica to honduras. and he starts buying up land across honduras, converting land, farmland that grew all types of other crops before. to land that would grow just one crop. bananas, bananas. bananas. under the murray's direction. honduras and costa rica became more or less these two nations became vast banana fields, vast banana plantations, growing little else to support the people who worked there. by 1905, sam had moved moved united fruit's operations to new

orleans. this made total sense. it was closer to central and latin america, where bananas are grown. the port of new orleans could also handle the booming banana trade that the murray was instilled food in the millions of bananas processed under his control. pictured here on the screen is united fruit's former corporate headquarters in new orleans. it was just three blocks away from the city's first skyscraper. it was built, as you can see, in 1920. and it was also ten stories tall. a skyscraper of its day. and it's still there. it has this beautiful facade. and if you walk around the central business district of new

orleans, you could find this building is no longer united. fruit's headquarters. as we'll see down the road. by the 19 tens, the murray was more or less the most powerful man in central america. certainly in honduras, although he didn't live there, he lived here in new orleans. in 1912. he even with the help of the unedtates government, enacted a coup, a military and political coup that tossedut the honduran government. and replaced it with h o personally installed and chosen president. this president answered directly to sam, the bana man. if you've ever heard the term banana republic, not the clothing outlet. right, but the political social

and economic international term banana republic. this is it's origins. it's a term that means a just on the very basic level, a politically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of its natural resources. honduras was sam the banana man's banana republic. it was a nation, a country built on sending bananas to the united states, which would then send bananas everywhere. by now. by the 19 tens, the murray is beyond wealthy. he has his own shipping line. nicknamed the great white fleet, which operated not just as a a import export banana shipping line, but it also transported people all around the map, seen

here. he had his own personal army that at his call could go down to central america and get what he needed done. united fruit and sam installed similar banana republics in guatemala, costa rica, colombia. throughout central and latin america. united fruit was known as el peuple. the octopus for the far reaches of its tentacles. not to be outdone, the standard fruit company, which was united fruit's big rival on the fruit trade scene of the day, early 20th century. standard fruit company set up

its own banana ripple public special rising not in bananas, but in pineapples. can anywhere, anyone guess? does anyone know where? yeah. yes, hawaii. thank you. so hawaii was standard fruit. banana republic built on pineapples. these united states corporate nations basically owned several nations during this period. owning the central american nations. and looking to the future. these these the land and economy needs of these nations were wrecked for long periods, some up until the present day because of their reliance on growing a single crop, a practice called mono crop farming. samson murray could exist on

bananas now that he only eight bananas, but he built a life on bananas. people in honduras, costa rica, colombia cannot eat just bananas. but often in these places. that's all there were after united fruit was done with them just vast banana fields. banana fields, laborers throughout these nations worked in slave like conditions, it must be said, often at gunpoint. untold thousands of people throughout the caribbean, throughout central america were killed in coups. political coups, military coups, counter revolutions and civil wars. the most notable of these events happened in november 1928, and it's portrayed in really beautiful mural by diego rivera

was painted a few decades later. and what this painting is portraying is a this event in november 1928 when banana plantation workers in colombia went on strike for safer working conditions as united fruit, which ran this vast banana plantation, refuse to neg at all with the strikers. and united fruit pushed their et colombian government that was in charge of the country to send in the army to break up strike. up to 2000 wor slaughtered in the fields just down in the fields by the army. this became known as the banana massacre. in 1929. zamora sells out.

he's out of the banana business. he sells out for $30 million. we can go look up what that's worth today, 1929, a massive, massive amount of money. and it made him one of the world's wealth. yes. men. but unable to pay all himself away. that's a banana open, unable to peel himself away from the business, from the power of the banana. he returns to the company. in 1933 when he stages a hostile takeover of the united fruit board. and he did this because the company's stock had dipped, trimmed mostly during the great depression. and when he stages this takeover of the board of united fruit, he installs himself as president just like he was installing presidents three throughout central america throughout his career, the decades before he installs himself as president in

he holds it until 1951, quite a long time. the following year, 1952, united fruit and the cia install an anti-communist probe banana coup in guatemala. eventually leading to a civil war that lasts up through the 1990s and his effects i just got back from guatemala. whose effects are still being certainly felt today politically and socially, economically for sure. by then, by 1996, the united fruit corporation had changed ownership and names to become known, as does anyone know the name of united fruit today? what corporation it became?

yeah. no, not dole closed that standard. but it's chiquita banana. you're exactly right. so united fruit transforms after being bought and sold to key to banana sam. the banana man dies a decade after finally leaving the presidency of his business. he dies in 1961, and he lives the last 50 years. he lives with the last 50 years of his life in arguably the most opulent mansion in the city of new orleans, a palace of a home that most new orleanians. going back to the theme at the beginning of the class, most new orleanians throughout the 20th century and up until they couldn't can't help look up to because it's a it's a dang big home you might recognize it of course it's right down the street from us upon his death. samson, murray, sam, the banana donated this home to our

university, to tulane university, where it becomes the residence. tulane sitting president. we're not done yet. new orleans is doc workers unions. would remain racially segregated up until 1980. up. until 1980. by then, united fruit, which is now headquartered, i believe, in switzerland, the chiquita banana brand, is owned by this multinational conglomerate in switzerland. but by then 1980, united fruit had moved its banana traffic, its port, its main port east to gulfport, mississippi. now, why to gulfport, mississippi, which is not a very big town at all? well, there's two reasons. gulfport, mississippi, the ports

there were more easily accessible to the railroads that would then filter those bananas out across the country. in and to. it just made more sense for these boats coming in from central america up the gulf to not go up the mississippi river and travel to new, but to just park along the gulf at gulfport, mississippi, which is a town, a city where its name gives away its founding purpose. right. a port on the gulf of mexico. the very next year, 1981. new orleans is. first elected black mayor. his name was ernest or dutch morial. we'll talk more about him in the coming weeks. called for the removal of the statue. what i called the most troublesome, the ugliest statue among the thousands throughout

the south, dedicated to the confederacy. the one that said this statue is dedicated to white supremacy on it, the battle of liberty, place, monument. that remove evil is a complex, hated episode, one that drags on several decades. it is eventually removed, but that will not happen for. 36 years. an episode that will turn to next