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Louisiana is a human gumbo that exists nowhere else in America.

Its founding predates the 13 colonies and its diversity comes from its European and African roots that gave rise to its existence more than five centuries ago, when New Orleans, not Ellis Island, not any other port, was the gateway to the new world.

It's the culture, stupid.

Yes, James.

It's the culture that makes us different.

There's an exuberance here, a joie de vivre, a love of life mixed with the religious zeal of multiple denominations.

Unlike other Southern states, almost a third of us are Catholic.

That's why we have parishes, not counties.

Mardi Gras is a state holiday.

We spell our words differently.

Our food is spicy.

The Holy Trinity has a double meaning.

Our civil laws are based on the Napoleonic Code.

We have drive thru daiquiri shops.

And there's no ethnic majority.

40% of us are white Anglo-Saxon Protestants.

32% are African-American.

And 28% are everything else.

French, Spanish, Creole and Cajun.

This is the story of our disproportionate contribution to America's music, art, sports, history and politics.

None of which would be possible without the mighty river that empties into the Gulf of Mexico through just one state.

Ours.

It's while Louisiana, eight Mississippi, or anyplace else.

Would emotions all.

Of a sudden.

Any discussion of Louisiana must begin with water.

It buffers our bottom most rhythm.

It pools serenely in lakes and bayous in almost every parish of the state.

It nourishes the agricultural ground in which we are rooted.

Its manifestation is the mighty Mississippi River from its source in Lake Itasca, Minnesota.

The river begins in a trickle, coursing its way through ten states, traveling more than 2300 miles before gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

Does it ever say Rich?

The river water and the weather define us as Louisianians, I guess.

And this mighty river is really the reason we're here.

In the most fundamental of ways, starting with geology.

This very landscape here, to a degree of 100%, is the product of sediment deposited by that river.

And to put even fine a point on it, you could go so far to say that if 70% of the human body is comprised as water and their water source is the Mississippi River, that if you live here long enough, 70% of your body is Mississippi River water.

Now, I'm hard pressed to think of a more intrinsic relationship of a river to its people.

The rest of it is Sazerac.

I was going to say coffee, but.

Okay.

Well, mix of both.

Perhaps.

It is majestic, but it hasn't always been kind.

In 1927, the river overflowed its banks, puncturing the erratically placed earthen levees and 145 places.

27,000 square miles of America were inundated most dramatically in Alabama, Mississippi and 20 of the 64 parishes in Louisiana.

Hundreds of people died.

Thousands more were displaced.

And the national economy devastated by $400 million in losses.

Six feet of water in the streets of revenge.

Also swept away was the levees only policy of the Mississippi River Commission.

What this policy entailed was a faulty understanding of river dynamics.

What they said is that what you want is strong high levees to scour out the bottom and thus create more space to store excess water.

What it does is simply shift the bottom sediment to the next section of the river.

Instead of deepening the river, it raises the bottom of the river, Louisiana.

And so, you know, it's a tiger by the tail scenario.

You have to make the levees that much stronger and stronger as it races higher and higher and threatens even more.

So eventually.

And this is going to lead to the moment when you have a mega disaster, extreme excess water that eventually starts breaching those levees.

That's what happened in April of 1927.

In response, Congress passed the Flood Control Act of 1928 and charged the Corps of Engineers with adopting other strategies to tame the river.

What this led to was the creation of spillways like the Bonner Carry Spillway, the Morganza Spillway.

Ways of storing, retaining water, routing them laterally as rivers like the Mississippi are want to do in the first place.

We haven't had a flood like 1927 ever since that.

It was man's effort to manipulate Mother Nature.

And so far it's worked.

But it has deprived Louisiana of the nutrient rich sediment called Alluvium that has been deposited on both sides of the swollen river for 7000 years, where it was the life source of the first people to occupy this land.

At the end of it, no matter the danger.

Shannon Adams People now manmade levees, they've decided to say no to fixing.

Do they part on the ingredients that make a good gumbo are literally analogous to the human gumbo that shaped Louisiana's earliest days and remain evident even today.

There's no better person to make a great gumbo and explain the origin of those ingredients in Chef John Foltz.

And no matter how.

Chef, we all know Louisianans love their gumbo.

But what is a gumbo?

What a great question.

A lot of people would say just a mixture of everything, a mixture of culture, a mixture of music, food, ingredients from the swamp land.

So, John, this was a pretty important early ingredient.

One of the most important because without this, the sassafras or the leaves of the sassafras tree, which we grow out dry and ground into fillet powder, as we call it, it's a thickening agent and a flavoring agent for our soup.

Without the Native American gift of sassafras.

We wouldn't have a gumbo.

What would Louisiana be without it?

Well, before we put the fillet in there, too thick and we're got to have a stock.

Yeah, exactly.

And one of the great things about the stock and Louisiana, again, another great gift from all of those nations that came in.

But again, the Native Americans were the first to add to the stock and it came in the form of fish bones.

They would eat the fish, but of course, the bones would be boiled in the Mississippi River water to pick up the flavor of the fish and then any wild herbs and seasonings.

Just imagine way back in the 50 and 1600s that these people were able to come up with these flavors that we're still using today.

Oh, we know Native Americans have been on this land longer than anyone else.

And some of the fascinating evidence of the sophisticated civilization they built, Is it poverty point in West Carroll Parish?

We're reentering the ridge system.

So that was Ridge said.

I'm here with Dr. Diana Greenly, an archeologist who has studied the ancient mounds at poverty point for years.

Poverty point.

It's really just such a special place.

It's so remarkable.

Built by American Indians has these earthen monuments, these mounds, in a scale and design that's just not known anywhere else.

Although the early occupants who gathered and traded here have never been known as Louisianans.

They were our first citizens.

A mound.

It goes back 3500 plus years.

Yeah.

The mound itself probably dates to sometime after about 1350 B.C.. And it's called Mound Day, but it was originally called the Bird Mound, right?

Mm hmm.

Why was that?

Well, the first archeologists here thought that it resembled a bird in flight.

Birds are important in the iconography of the Southeastern Indians.

Is it correct that there's no evidence of agriculture on this site?

That is true.

Perhaps as many as 10,000 people came here at any one time.

You'd think there would be some evidence of agriculture and how they fed themselves and and how they live.

But no agriculture.

But this is Louisiana.

It's so rich.

The the resources were so abundant.

You had the floodplain just off the edge of the ridge.

You had these upland resources.

So, you know, you had fish and turtles and waterfowl, deer nuts.

These folks were hunters and gatherers.

They went out and got things and what they got the most of was dirt or mud to build these mounds.

These mounds didn't start like this.

They had to be constructed.

If you think about it in terms of £50 basket loads of dirt, that's probably about 15 and a half million basket loads that crazy.

All right.

Well, let's go see the mound A the escalators on the other side.

Yeah.

I'm glad we don't have to carry on a conversation the whole way up because I'll be panting.

Yeah.

I know.

People.

Most of the speculation, I guess, is speculation centers around the fact that this was some type of ceremonial spot or gathering spot, either commercially or from a religious standpoint.

Right.

Well, our speculation is that it was some sort of ceremonial kind of thing.

But usually when archeologists say that, it just means we don't really know.

The belief is that a mound this size took how long to build.

Well, there have been some archeologists who have looked at the dirt that's within the mound, and they have estimated it could have been, you know, as few as 90 days.

Come on.

You know what's really fascinating?

We can identify individual or basket loads.

And within those basket loads of dirt, there is actually dirt that comes from different depths or different sort of locations on the site all mixed together in one basket load.

It actually is engineered.

I saw I want to see some of the stuff that you've dug up from around here.

Oh, all.

Right.

Okay.

Let's head on back to the curatorial facility.

People tend to downplay how sophisticated these people were, but, you know, they knew their environment, they knew where to get resources.

They had great craftsmen ship.

These people had the time and the energy and the resources to do some amazing stuff.

What's behind the door?

That is our artifact storage area.

So you can see we have artifacts from excavations going back into the early seventies, into the eighties or the nineties.

All right.

Let's go check this out.

That's an owl.

Wow.

They're all kind of little owls that have been found all over the property.

They were a symbol, presumably, of this place and a calling card.

Yeah.

People took it with them to show where they'd been here.

You can actually see little eyes and a nose.

So now you've got some arrowheads here, huh?

Actually, these would be darter spear points.

Something to hunt with, obviously.

Yes.

This is one of the sort of classic poverty point types.

It's called a motley point.

But the tip is very sharp and it's obviously some kind of stone.

It's chert.

Chert, chert.

Chert.

It's a combination of charcoal and dirt.

Sounds like it, doesn't it?

But no, it's a kind of rock.

And that's really interesting.

It's a figurine.

What's interesting is that they're female.

They're mostly headless torsos.

A lot of them look like they may be pregnant.

Was this some kind of a fertility symbol?

We don't know.

We don't.

Know.

But they're clearly defined where the arms would be with legs would be there.

No heads.

They don't have heads on any of them.

No, some of them do have heads.

And there are also ones like this that don't appear to be pregnant.

There are, yes.

That are slender.

Actually, I have one.

It's pretty awesome.

So you can see there's a little bit of a head.

Yeah, well.

Normal.

Well, look at this.

This clearly legs and where the arms would be.

And there's a head and there's a belt.

But this doesn't look like she's pregnant.

We don't know what language we're speaking, and we don't know how they said, wow, or This is awesome, but this is pretty cool.

In 2014, Poverty Point became only the 22nd site in America and the 1001 site in the world to be named a UNESCO's World Heritage site based on its cultural and historical significance.

What's even more interesting is the recent discovery that the mounds on LSU's campus are even older than those at Poverty Point dating back some 11,000 years.

That makes them the oldest manmade structures, not just in Louisiana, but in the Americas.

And the descendants of these indigenous communities are still here today.

Still time to come on out.

Gentlemen, we're going to be really entertained by the biggest granite.

Tree here in Kindler.

Louisiana.

Man, some like the Tunica Biloxi tribe in Marksville and the Corchado Tribe in Candor, are federally recognized as sovereign nations within the territorial United States.

And.

You know, a lot of times, people, they really don't realize there's an Indian tribe here.

There's four certainly recognized within the state of Louisiana Down here in the corner of southwest Louisiana is the crowd of people.

And a lot of times they should be forgotten, and mostly because people are just unaware.

We also bring in our ladies categories and all that category will explain it all.

We really try to push our culture.

We we just recently had our shot of Powwow, which really put it on display when you have tribes from all over the country coming in.

Definitely.

If you haven't been to a powwow, try and go to one day, have amazing food.

Love the music.

Really, really interesting dancing.

When you're in your traditional regalia, you're showing your colors.

This is a fun time to come out and celebrate your culture.

People think of Kushida and they think of our business down the road.

Casino.

However, just a few miles away, the birthplace of the Kushida tribe is right here.

I'm in Elkton, Louisiana, the home of the Kushida tribe with Chief Jonathan Skurnick.

Chief.

Not a lot of people in Louisiana are going to believe that we have a buffalo herd right here in our state.

But we do.

That's right.

Right here in the corner of Allen Parish.

We actually have had these buffalo for close to two decades now.

How many are there?

Oh, we have a herd of over 20 now that were actually a gift to us from a tribe in Oklahoma.

Started the herd.

The herd has grown into what it is today.

You have some native born Buffalo here, Louisiana, native.

Buffalo, right?

Yeah.

We're so proud of them.

Matter of fact, we built a gas station convenience store to showcase.

Buffalo Run.

Buffalo run open in 2016.

Live Buffalo viewing patio in the back of society cultural center inside that displays all of our handmade cassadee.

Baskets and you haven't yet put an EU hex on the end of buffalo.

Not yet.

Not yet.

But if we go up I-10, you never know because that's Cajun country.

The Homer Indians date back to at least 1686 when they settle in the area of Baton Rouge and they're the current site of the Angola Prison.

Eventually, Homer tribe members migrated to Lafourche and Tara Bone, thus the name of the parish seat and Native American names remain important pages of any Louisiana dictionary.

Centuries ago, this very spot marked a dividing line between the hunting grounds of the Houma Indians and the Bayou Gooley Indians.

A cypress stick, a bloody cypress stick marked the dividing line.

French explorer sailing up the Mississippi River saw that bloody red stick and named this place like Baton Rouge.

The Baton Rouge Bicentennial Commission erected this sculpture by the late Frank Haydon to commemorate that sighting of the bloody red stick and the naming of Baton Rouge.

Even the Mississippi River itself has a respectful Indian name.

The word Mississippi is generally translated as Father of Waters, so it's a beautiful word, and I think every schoolchild realizes how fun it is to spell it that you could almost see the sinuous channels of the river as you write it.

The river flow measures 3 million gallons per second.

If a levee were to be breached right here, it skip Bartman Drive.

God forbid the water would fill Tiger Stadium in 30 seconds.

New meaning to roll Tide.

Barely get them off.

Let me make two points right here.

I mean, right here.

Daniel's for the wind.

God bless you.

Does it?

The volume and force of the Mississippi carries with it nutrient rich sediment known as Alluvium.

The river actually filters 40% of the dirt in America, ultimately giving rise to the nation's largest flood plain.

And within it Louisiana's alluvial valley.

That rich river sediment creates the finest farmland in the country, and it's made Louisiana an agricultural giant in the production of beef and dairy cattle, cotton, corn, rice and soybeans.

Oh, and who could forget crawfish?

We're the nation's largest domestic producer, £150 million of the delicacies each year.

But the Mississippi River didn't build those fertile fields all on its own.

If the Mississippi had its way and the levee system had not been created to harness the river, it would eventually overtake the Atchafalaya River and hasten its rise to the Gulf.

Over and over in.

The Atchafalaya flows south to the Gulf and 130 miles, The Mississippi Serpentine path through Louisiana requires 315 miles before it reaches the Gulf.

It's a good thing for the economy that the two rivers remain separate and distinct.

Otherwise, Baton Rouge would not be a port city in New Orleans would become a saltwater estuary.

Of course, in true colonization fashion, it was the Spaniard, Hernando de Soto, who was credited with discovering the Mississippi River in 1541.

The Spanish were the first European outsiders with whom the Native Americans had to contend.

The Spaniards were explorers.

They wanted to expand their Catholic faith in the 16th and 17th centuries, traveling from Mexico and South America from what is now Florida and from what would become Texas.

But it would take another 100 years before the real roux and the human gumbo was introduced to the New World.

First, we got to make a roux, though.

That's exactly right.

Everything in Louisiana begins with the roux when you're talking about a guy.

Well, let's make a roof and a roof is equal parts of oil and flour and it's a thickening agent.

And without the oil in the flour combining, we would just have a watery dish rather than that.

Right.

Nice, rich, thick dish that we're going to we're going to call it gumbo.

So I'm putting in oil.

In the old days, we would use animal fat.

We would use any kind of fat coming in from you get one of these and I'm going to let you take this.

All right.

Now, equal parts of oil in flour.

And you're going to see you see the steam coming out of here.

The flour is going to what is going to evacuate that pot quickly.

And you want to stir like crazy.

You don't want it to stick to the bottom of the pot.

And this another one of our early gifts from the French explorers, they came in and found the Native Americans doing this.

And they said, you know, we like it, but let's think about it.

And of course.

This is not going to end like you wanted to.

Do.

And of course, as you.

Start, it's going to change color because the flour is going to toast.

And through the toasting, there's going to be a richness and flavor that's going to just be compounded when we add this beautiful, beautiful stock and you want to get all in the corners of that so you don't burn it.

And the more you cook it, the darker it'll get.

And of course, that's the secret to a good gumbo.

The French made their first expedition began in 1682 when Robert Cavalier Sur de La Salle set sail from the Great Lakes in a canoe.

He disembarked near what is now known as Venice, Louisiana.

He started to smell and taste saltwater, and he knew he was near the mouth of the river.

He landed and famously planted the the floor of the lee and the course and claimed the entire watershed sight unseen as the land of his king.

King Louis, and hence Louisiana.

Claimed this land for King Louis.

Louis, Louisiana.

Marcel comments as he begins to understand the nature of the lower Mississippi and how it relates to this vast basin through which he sailed.

And these are his exact words.

A boat there to here will make us mass does as a whole as his garden.

That's less than a decade later, the French crown recognized that it needed to act on Lasalle's claim, or else the Spanish or English would.

They deploy once again out of French Canada, the Lemoine brothers.

Now Abbeville is the older brother.

He's 36 years old.

He's a war hero in French count and a battle of the English on the Great Lakes.

Bienville This is a younger brother, very interesting character.

He's a tough read.

I'd like to meet him.

And I often wonder what he would be like in person.

He's 19, He's got got something to prove in front of his big brother.

And they probe along the Gulf Coast.

They come to a little island and there they see about 60 or 70 skeletons with Vasco shells and completely dismembered bodies.

They call it Massacre Island.

So they proceed along and they find a shallow draft, which is not good for these oceangoing vessels.

And fortuitously the come upon ship island off today's Gulfport.

So they use that and that region as sort of a jumping off point to try to find that river that LaSalle had discovered that Great River back in 1682.

Abbeville records excellent journals, and he records every movement as he's penetrating up the river.

And it so happened on March 3rd, 1699, they pull over at a certain meander.

They had a little bayou there.

And gloriously it's Mardi Gras.

I witness today something called Mudd.

And he writes it in his journal.

Mardi spells it over a why Mardi Gras?

Mardi Gras never have I seen something so vile, so raucous and so debaucherous.

I must come back again.

It doesn't go into any more dimensions.

It twice.

But the very fact that he took the time to note that it was Mardi Gras is really quite remarkable.

This is the first primary source, clear reference to Mardi Gras in the early French colonial era, this so called Mardi Gras.

This is a combination of pomp, circumstance and lowered inhibitions that would make the kings and queens of Europe weep.

In 1699, while canoeing upriver, Bienville came upon an English warship.

Move aside for Her Majesty the Queen's Royal British Navy.

We must stay claim to this land for England.

I would not continue down this river if I were you.

You would the captain move?

Yes.

French scoundrel.

You will meet 500,000 French soldiers armed to the teeth, which are themselves very sharp.

They will ambush you and you will be walking directly into certain death.

We all but a single vessel.

We would not survive an attack.

How can we trust him?

He's just a man in a canoe.

Can we afford to not trust him?

English man, please turn around.

You're walking into an ambush and you cannot say No one warned you.

Would you help us up?

Turn around English, turn it into English, Turn the van around.

English turn right, then turn good English or.

And that's how French trickery denied the British control of the river.

Bienville served as our second territorial governor shortly after his governorship ended, his successor ordered Louisiana's first land grant to the entrepreneur sand in the sand, and he made his way along the red River and founded Natchitoches in 1714, making it the first settlement in the territory of Louisiana and in 1718, Choctaw Indians helped guide Bienville to a place that would change the course of history on the banks of the river, wrote Bienville, is a place very favorable for the establishment of a post with one of the finest crescents in the river.

Thus, the Crescent City was born.

How did New Orleans get its name?

Well, it was named for Philip Duke, the earliest who unexpectedly came to power when King Louis the 14th died.

Breaking news today, September 1st, 1715.

King Louis, the 14th has died in Baci.

He ruled France for 72 years.

And now all eyes are on his successor since Louie Louie, as his friends called him, outlived his son and eldest grandson.

The throne will be passe.

His five year old grandson, the deceased King's nephew, Felipe.

The second will make decisions until the boy comes of age.

In studio now is Duke of Orleans Felipe, the second his mother, Elizabeth, and famed writer Voltaire.

Felipe, I'm so sorry that this happened.

Are you up for the job?

Thank you for having me.

No, I do not think I will do well.

So you'll step aside then.

Neville, I never giving up power.

Well, I'm just letting everyone know I'm going to look out for number one and lower expected options.

But your mother's here.

Surely she believes in you.

The fairies have given him every gift except that of how to use them.

Sykes.

That's his mom.

Folks saying he was born on third base and doesn't know how to run home.

Well put.

Do you understand what they're saying about you?

No, thank you.

Voltaire.

You're a prominent French writer, A wizard of words.

How would you describe Phillipe the second?

Oh, we've had many unscrupulous kings.

Phillipe, however, is a man of few scruples.

In fact, scruples themselves prefer not to be mentioned in the same sentence as elite.

Well, I think you hold out.

It's really.

That's.

That's.

It's not a compliment.

We'll be back with more after this message from our sponsor, Maurice Cakes.

Let them eat it.

And that, my friends, is for whom New Orleans was named.

France had a strategic military interest in protecting Louisiana from the British, who were seeking to expand in the new world.

The Duke dearly ah appointed Antoine Crozet for the job.

Five years into his 15 year contract, Crozet relinquished the property back to France, promising that tobacco would be the top crop in the territory, perhaps confirming that he was smoking something long before it became legal in certain states.

The only tobacco that would be grown in Louisiana turned out to be Perrigo Tobacco, a particularly powerful strain still grown exclusively in St James Parish.

After Crow's odds failure.

Along came John Locke, an economic theorist and financial wizard who had the skills and savvy to woo wealthy investors.

But Lore had one fault he couldn't live up to his name.

He was the Bernie Madoff of the 18th century, making off with everyone's money.

John Lore is almost a cinematic character.

He was brilliant, The Scotsman, and he was a gambler.

He was also a womanizer.

He was a hard labor.

And he knew that the way you got things done was by hobnobbing with the powerful.

And so he was one of the first to conceptualize the use of paper currency rather than real wealth, such as gold.

It's called.

A stock.

It's better than real money.

This was this exciting new concept, and investors, buyers of stock in this company went wild for it.

They didn't just go wild for in the streets of Paris, they went wild for it in Leipzig and Berlin.

Throughout the continent, everyone wanted in on this deal.

Law established a national bank in France and in 1717 created the company of the West.

The French government gave the company control of trade between France and its Louisiana and Canadian colonies.

That territory of trade stretched for 3000 miles and gave rise to the company's more popular name.

The Mississippi company.

The lure of gold and silver brought out many eager investors aristocrats with names like New Plaza Industrial and no trade Gallery.

Della Ronde.

Della, who's say the Laboratoire Liver de Mandeville, Moura, Paul and Phaedrus are all familiar names in Louisiana today and all joined by a single German family named Darren's Bird.

These wealthy aristocrats were accompanied by moralists and misfits.

MOralists in the sense that there were nuns and priests to provide for the spiritual guidance of these Catholic pioneers and misfits.

Well, as one historian, they ransack jails and hospitals looking for incorrigible and those with social ills disorderly soldiers.

Paupers, prostitutes.

And unsophisticated peasants are our ancestors.

Again.

I gave you.

The price of their shares, kept rising like a balloon, and then suddenly it popped.

Things start to sour within a year or two, when rumors start to make it back from Louisiana that things are rough going, that things are slow going.

And just like a run on the bank, rumors get are out there.

You better cash out now and there's panic.

By 1731, the company is now all but bankrupt.

The sordid saga is referred to as the Mississippi bubble.

As for law, he is exiled.

He dies poor.

I believe in 1729.

But his impact is made.

And today we have something called monetary policy.

And we have stock and we have corporations and we have commercial wealth.

And we don't think twice about it.

Welcome, everyone, to this very special event.

I'm Robyn Merrick, supporter and friend of LP.

You're watching Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi or any Place Else.

What a storytelling adventure this is.

This new documentary from LPI is a collaboration with DJ Darden, who many of you already know as a great ambassador for Louisiana.

Jay will join us in just a moment, along with LPI executive producer Linda Midget.

We are so fortunate to have ELP to tell the story of Louisiana.

Show us you value this by calling or texting.

Give 2888769 5000 pledging online Lpv dawg or by scanning the QR code on your screen.

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So let's take a look.

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That includes the signed hardcover coffee table book.

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The only place to stream Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi or any Place Else.

And we're back with Dadaab now, creator and host of the program that we're watching.

And Linda Majid, executive producer here at Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

So exciting to have you all both with us today.

And we're doing something really special.

Jay, This this whole thing we've been talking about it for a couple of years.

We've had an opportunity to see your presentations that led to this program.

Tell us more about that.

Well, it's been a fun project.

The impetus behind this was a guy named Jerry Doty, who was a lobbyist and a political consultant, a rock on tour.

He was a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, He said he grew up seven miles past the resume speed sign in plain dealing Louisiana on a steady diet of coal, coon, cornbread, cane sirup and collards.

Interesting.

And that's that's what really got me interested in trying to tell this story about the different ingredients that go into the human gumbo that make up Louisiana.

Indeed.

Indeed.

And so, Linda, this is this is right up Llp's Alley to tell Louisiana stories.

This is what one of the things LPI does the best it is.

And Jay has been given this presentation for many years.

And so last year I was invited to see this presentation and it was great to see the roomful of people respond so well to it.

Some people like me are not native to Louisiana, others are that everybody had the same reaction and somebody at the end of that meeting stood up and said, OPV should do this as a documentary series.

And I said, I'm here.

We're going to do it.

So Jay and I sat down afterwards and started sort of hashing out what this might look like as an adaptation of the presentation that he gives.

That is incredible.

I've had the opportunity to see that presentation a couple of times, and every time I was just so excited.

Being a native of Louisiana, living here all my life and still learning more and more about our state every time.

So I know you had to get that reaction as you go around the state.

We have.

And of course, making a television documentary is completely different.

It's not me talking for 3 hours with some music in the background.

This is a this is a television production with a lot of great Louisiana personalities in it, Taking a look at the cultures that make Louisiana unique and all the things that make us unlike any other place in the world.

Indeed, indeed, any other place in the world.

No, there's no place like Louisiana, guys.

I got to just see that one more time.

And this is a great time to support Lvb to support public television in Louisiana.

We have an amazing challenge going on during this break that you're watching us right now.

We want you to know more about the challenge and want to thank Royal Martin.

He's challenging all of our viewers to donate tonight, and they will match dollar for dollar up to the first $3,000 it's called in during this program only.

So, in effect, this means that your gift will be matched dollar for dollar.

It'll be double to Lvb.

And you can do that right now by giving us a call and your pledge of support at eight, eight, eight seven, six, nine, 5000.

And we definitely want to hear from you.

Now, in addition to that, we've got an amazing credit card offer.

Help does this better than anyone that I know.

And of course, this is a $3,000 special credit card offer, and that means a pledge of 3000 or more on your credit card.

You will receive the only in Louisiana VIP package.

This includes an overnight stay at the still Magnolia house in Natchitoches, a private Atchafalaya swamp tour gift certificate for Legends World famous for its meat pies, along with the Cajun food tour that includes five tasting stops for up to 14 people at locally owned Cajun restaurants around Lafayette.

Plus, you'll receive all of the gifts from tonight's show.

This is an amazing package and well worth more than 3000.

But if you give that level of support on your credit card, you will receive that very special package.

So we want to hear from our viewers.

And Linda, I know you are excited about this program.

Like you said, we've been waiting for this to happen and now we're here.

And so, Jay, you just got to tell us you had an opportunity to interview an eclectic group of Louisianians.

We really did.

And a lot of great ambassadors for Louisiana.

And your viewers can be ambassadors for help and for Louisiana by supporting the show.

We've got James Carville and Kim Mulkey and Richard Lipsey and John Folds and a whole host of of Louisianans who talk about why Louisiana's special to them and tell the story of this human gumbo that that exists here in Louisiana.

Indeed, a human gumbo that exists.

And so, Linda, this is a new way to tell the story for for LBB.

I mean, this is a different route to tell Louisiana stories.

We've got a number of programs that we've told stories on, but this time it's it's a little different.

Tell us about that.

Yeah, well, you know, the human gumbo is what we're exploring.

And This is sort of a gumbo of a show in some ways.

And we've sort of taken every storytelling technique that we have.

But I was, I think, the defining thing for this series is really the humor that was really important to us to just make it fun.

Jay's presentation has a lot of humor in it, and we had a great time using local comedians for the recreations that our audience is seeing.

And Bill Joyce has done some of the animations that are coming up.

He's a Shreveport native, so it was just really important to us to to make this fun and as entertaining as possible.

Yeah, and so much history to tell the special story of Louisiana.

So we're going to talk a little bit more about the great thank you gift that you can receive if you give us your call and your pledge of support.

Here they are.

When you become a member, you help LBB Tell Louisiana story to thank you, choose from these commemorative gifts, become a sustaining member at $35 a month and receive the Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi combo that includes the signed hardcover coffee table book.

The limited edition signed photographic print collection by Carol Highsmith that includes Mike the Tiger Pig Chief, Mardi Gras Indian fireworks over Cane River, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Coastal Marsh and the Why Louisiana Mississippi two DVD Set, as well as the commemorative poster for $20 a month received the Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi Photography Collection of five limited edition photographic prints signed by Carol Highsmith for $13 a month, receive the signed hardcover companion book signed by Jay Dardenne and Carol Highsmith, or for just $7 a month, receive the two DVD set of this documentary, plus receive Visions Libby's Monthly Program Guide, Louisiana Life Magazine, and Libby Passport.

The only place to Stream Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi or Anyplace Else.

In addition to these great thank you gifts, we also have our credit card challenge that is going on right now.

So that is a special credit card offer.

That is anyone who makes a pledge of support of 3000 or more on a credit card, you'll receive the only in Louisiana VIP package.

It's an amazing package that includes an overnight stay at the still Magnolia house in Natchitoches, a private chef, a swamp tour gift certificate for lesbians world famous for their meat pies and of course, Cajun tours, including five tasting stops for up to 14 people.

And so much more, along with all of the gifts tonight.

And again, I've got to remind everyone of the corporate challenge that is going on right now.

And thanks to Roy or Martin for the corporate challenge, challenging all of our viewers to donate tonight.

And they will match dollar for dollar up to $3,000 called in during this program only.

So, in effect, this means that your contribution to help will be doubled if you give us a call of support, it's eight, eight, seven, six, nine, 5000.

Of course, you can scan the QR code that is on your screen.

So back to Jay and Linda.

Before we go back into the program some more, Tell us just a bit about Jay.

You got something you want to say before I ask my question.

There are at least 60 song snippets that you're going to hear throughout these 4 hours.

And that's the real horrible hallmark I think of.

The presentation is Louisiana's disproportionate contribution to everything great America, be it food, music, sports, the arts.

Louisiana's had a disproportionate impact based upon its size.

And that really is is an important part of why Louisiana ain't anyplace else in.

A small state.

But we've got a mighty punch pack, a punch across this country.

So guys are going to go back to Moore, the show right now.

So we'll be back in a little bit.

Among the new arrivals, we're also those who did not come voluntarily.

I mean, when Louisiana was part of the triangle of trade between North America, Europe and West Africa, that began in the 17th.

Is the nature of the slave.

Trade during colonial times was mostly the story of the middle passage.

The two main waves during the French and Spanish colonial times, one entailed about 5000 victims who survived, and that was in the 1720s during French colonial times, and they disproportionately came from the center Gambia region.

There were many others, but the next major wave was in the 1780s during Spanish colonial time, and they tended to come from the Spanish colonies in Africa, which tended to be the bight of Benin and the Congo region.

And it's a big mistake to think of film as just Africans or just the West Africans.

They're really as varied in their ethnicity and their cultures as other groups coming under their own volition.

Cooperative tribal leaders in Africa profited by providing men, women and children to be bound in bondage.

On the coast of Africa, people being held in cells to be transported over the Atlantic.

The purpose of this ship was to transport as many people as possible.

As people are getting sick, people are dying.

There is a very brutal legacy with the transatlantic slave trade and that journey across the Atlantic.

The slave trade became an established part of the Louisiana economy and the practice was regulated in Europe by a code of laws known as the Code Noir or the Black Code.

Code Noir is a group of laws put in place by the French to govern mostly enslaved people, but black people more generally.

These things restrict the movement of enslaved people.

How many enslaved people can gather at any given point in time?

They also demand that you convert enslaved people to Catholicism, and so you end up with this very large black population of Catholics.

Thus the ultimate irony teaching Christianity to those imprisoned by human slavery.

The code also dictated that a master who has a child with the slave girl must free both the child and the slave.

It's a situation that was far too common.

Let's be real.

You know, the prevalence of sexual assault of young girls and young women who then go on to have mixed race children.

If you go back and some of the the records, you will see people identified or characterized as as mixed or a mulatto.

These forced unions became the topic of a 1971 Rolling Stones classic, Brown Sugar, a song that probably wouldn't be recorded today.

States avocado fields.

So in a market that in our day is.

Soon the debauchery evidenced by the treatment of natives and slaves, as well as the presence of prostitutes, created tension between the government and the church.

Early on, New Orleans was known as the City of Sin, a new Sodom.

One of the nuns, Sister Marie Hatchard, observed, The women here are extremely ignorant as to the means of securing their salvation, but they're very expert in the art of displaying their beauty, the territorial governor lamented, If I send away all these loose females, there would be no women left here at all.

Eventually, Bienville pleaded with the leaders in France and France.

Send me wives from the Canadians.

Meanwhile, Sister Hajjaj sent an urgent message to the church elders.

Bear in mind there were no telephones, faxes, email or other means of communication.

Aside from sending a note on a boat to the homeland, our message, nevertheless was quite urgent.

The devil has a vast empire here, which she hoped to overcome with God's love.

But overcoming yellow fever ultimately proved easier.

The Ursula nuns arrived soon after to civilize the city.

They also built themselves a convent.

It is really exceptional because it is our sole remaining, whole, fully documented French colonial era structure and whole quarter in not just the quarter, but the city, the region.

Amazing that here we are in a modern American city and it's still standing.

And that's the treasure of living in a neighborhood like this, in a city like this, of that tactile experience of history.

Emphasis on neighborhood.

This is a.

Neighborhood.

It is a level.

Where people live as well as you have the craziness of the French Quarter and Bourbon Street.

And they all seem to get along just like Louisiana seems to get along with this interesting mix of culture.

It all works.

Despite it all.

The arrival of the nuns helped the church, but it did not provide respectable wives for the lonely soldiers.

Me to the chapel and we're gonna get married.

The solution was the arrival of young ladies with small chests called corsets, which later morphed into caskets.

They came to be known as the casket Girls, literally the mothers of the New World, that the foundation of European influence on the territory of Louisiana was shared by the French with the Spanish.

The territory was ping pong back and forth between French and Spanish control.

Throughout the late 1700s.

I'm going to make my rounds.

My grandpapa.

Remember a Spaniard, Hernando de Soto, discovered the Mississippi River and the first settlement in Louisiana.

Natchitoches was controlled by the Spanish when the Frenchman San Dani arrived.

Now, Santini was an entrepreneur who developed a good relationship with the Spaniards who already occupied the area, which bordered on what is now Texas.

He also had the good sense to marry the granddaughter of the Spanish general, who controlled the territory.

My grandfather is the Spanish general who controls the entire territory.

Well, I did not know that, but I will not hold it against you.

Will you marry me?

Oh, He then established Fort Jean-Baptiste in Natchitoches and became a wealthy man in what became the crossroads of the El Camino Real.

The road of the Kings, as it was known, extended across Texas into Mexico.

This was the route traveled by Davy Crockett and Jim Buie to reach their fate at the Alamo High.

It will surprise many Texans to know that this historical landmark, Loza Dyess, near Roebling, Louisiana, Una stood as the capital of Texas for 40 years before Texas statehood went on the.

Line to advance battle of.

The Spanish influenced our 20th century music to the lead singer of that group, Sam the Sham of the Pharaohs was actually Domingo Sadio, who had a Tex-Mex band in Leesville.

The band played regularly on the border until the release of Willy Boly, which was supposedly the name of his cat.

It became a huge national hit.

At that point before that.

But now Spanish influence later moved westward from New Orleans to parishes like and Ascension.

There you'll travel through towns named Galvez and Gonzalez and meet families named Martinez Diaz and Saverio Hidalgo, Ouzo and Falcon.

Even more notable is the Spanish influence in Iberia Parish.

Spain sits on the Iberian Peninsula.

Thus the parish name.

They very soon began speaking French because they were outnumbered by French speakers and intermarried with the local population.

And so you have a lot of even today, a lot of people with Spanish last names that can be traced back to 1779.

Romero Dark has migas.

Segura And yet, you know, since at least the early 19th century and until the mid 20th.

Century, their primary language.

Was French.

But the surnames persist.

So the to the present.

While under Spanish control from 1766 to 1803, Louisiana prospered.

In particular, New Orleans.

The French Quarter burned twice during this period.

The French Quarter was restored as we see it today, and there's little French about it.

It is Spanish in design.

The wrought iron, flat roofs and colors are reminiscent of Havana, Cuba and Quito, Ecuador.

The great Louisiana novelist James Lee Burke, perhaps best described New Orleans in his book The Tin Roof Blowdown.

When he said traditional New Orleans is like a piece of South America that had been sawed off of its moorings and blown by trade winds across the Caribbean till it affixed itself to the southern rim of the United States.

So we're making our way to perhaps the most historically significant plot of land in the city.

Jackson Square plus two arms.

The absolute historical and psychological heart of New Orleans.

And everyone knows it.

And probably one of the best preserved, most symmetrical plaza ensembles in the nation.

You feel like you might be in France or Spain or Latin America as you arrive here.

And it is spectacular.

The blue stuff.

The.

Who do you think you are?

The Spaniard, Don Andre Salomon Astor is considered the true developer of New Orleans.

He built the first public school, the Charity Hospital and Saint Louis Cathedral, among other structures.

It's his daughter, however, the Baroness Punta Alba, who made the biggest mark.

She designed and built the first apartment houses in America.

The Punta Alba Apartments flanked the Saint Louis Cathedral, the builder and the Presbyter.

And Baroness Von Tomba probably was at the forefront of a trend of the circa 1850 that has since come become iconic for the French Quarter.

And that is the spectacular cast iron balconies, as opposed to the more modest wrought iron balconies that you saw previously and make much more elegant shapes and scrolls and if you look carefully, of course, you could see the initials of the Alma Noster and Punta Alba families there, too.

And at the same time, the prior Saint Louis church, now Cathedral, was largely disassembled except for the first 30 feet of the front wall and rebuilt in the form that you see today.

And eventually be the statue for Andrew Jackson was place and it was renamed Jackson Square.

What you're really seeing here is a very inspired woman led transformation of circa 1850.

Nowhere in Louisiana, however, is the Spanish influence more clearly celebrated than in Saint Bernard Parish, which was settled by Canary Islanders known as this Llanos.

They're familiar surnames read like a roll call of well known elected officials.

Nunez Perez Fernandez.

Hernandez.

Alvarez Barrios.

There are six words that put fear in the heart of Louisiana.

There's a storm in the Gulf.

Saint Bernard Parish was virtually destroyed during Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 to Miss New Orleans, when the very lifeblood of Louisiana engulfed the state's southeastern coastal parishes in a 27 foot storm surge.

Massive evacuations for the first time in history.

The city of New Orleans.

Under a soon after the nation and indeed the world watched in horror.

This is absolutely a.

Catastrophe as the levees in and around the city of New Orleans buckled under the pressure of catastrophic rains ushered in by a 115 mile per hour winds.

Moss covered and five.

Wealthy homes along the lakefront and in Uptown were equally as devastated as homes in working class Saint Minyard and the Lower Ninth Ward, proving that water knows no racial or political boundaries.

You could probably gauge exactly how high up the water is.

However, social and economic frailties and inequities quickly took center stage.

Police and firefighters are still trying to.

Reach people in largely poor black areas ravaged by floodwaters ten feet deep or more.

People who are just literally stranded.

More than 1800 Louisianans died.

Rita sustained high winds, deaths and.

One month after Katrina.

Hurricane Rita devastated southwest Louisiana.

Hurricane Laura slamming ashore as a monster category.

For the seen eclipsed by Hurricane Laura 15 years later in 2020.

Hurricane Ida.

Slammed into Louisiana, into New Orleans.

And one year later, that destruction was replicated yet again when Hurricane Ida struck on the anniversary of Katrina.

Rescuers unable to reach them over the last 50 years, 20 hurricanes and dozens of tropical storms have taken a disastrous toll on our state, causing billions of dollars in damage.

Well, then I'm in New Orleans.

Arguably, the greatest loss we suffer is to our coastal marshland.

Harnett can describe this part of Louisiana in an apt way.

It is a place that seems unable to make up its mind if it will be earth or water.

So it compromises the big loser in that compromise is land on maps.

Louisiana resembles a boat in reality, its soul and heal are in tatters.

The two critical resources that fluvial deltas like southeastern Louisiana critically need to stay land and not water.

One of them is occasional doses of freshwater to push back the saltwater wedge.

And the other one is the deposition of new sediment particles or alluvial sand, silt and clay particles.

Both of these need to happen in order to to build up delta topography and to keep it fresh so that there are cypress forests and other vegetation holding this all in place by straitjacketed ing the river in these artificial levees.

We eject both of those resources uselessly out on to the continental shelf.

Since 1932 and the construction of the levees on the Mississippi River, 2000 square miles have been lost.

That's 25% of the state's landmass.

It's the equivalent of losing a football field of land every 90 minutes.

If Delaware or Rhode Island had lost that much territory, the United States would have only 49 states.

Right now, we are on Lake Barrett.

Lake Barrett is on the outside of the Trafalgar Foundation now since the 1940.

You build the lavish, sure, this area would flourish much and then look like the last 20 years we've been sinking our water level from when I was a young kid.

These cypress trees then start growing in water.

They were growing in mud and our water higher.

And now they're into water.

With the rise in sea levels, it's already disappearing quick because we've got too much coastline.

Sure, you know, your hurricanes are going to cause more damage because they're going to come for the area and all your Gulf Coast states are going to be impacted.

I think Louisiana is going to be the worst.

And even the East Coast, you know, all the way up to New York and all your low lying areas.

I mean, I don't care if you're on the East Coast or Gulfport, you're going to be in trouble.

Efforts are underway to stem the tide and rebuild the coast, thanks to settlement diversion projects like this one.

You're looking at the newest land in Louisiana.

If you walk four feet in there, you.

Will disappear not far out, but you can turn around and walk back.

But this was all open water.

All of the all the birds.

There's 184 species of birds here in the wintertime.

On the other side, ten.

So my name is Captain Ryan Lambert.

I mean, got in these waters for 45 years down Buras, Louisiana.

I've watched the land on the west Side with no diversions, completely disappear, 100% devastation.

At the same time, with a very few little crevasses.

And diversions.

On this side.

I watched it grow.

See that levee over there?

In 1969, Hurricane Camille blew holes all through it, 19 holes in a levee that opened up these little crevasses.

And since then, they've been growing land.

And that's how I've learned everything I know about restoration is watching those little crevasses and the little diversions build layer.

I mean, we did this by building the levees after the flood at 27 for flood control and navigation of the Mississippi River.

But we didn't have a mandate for restoration.

We didn't know what it was going to do for 90 years.

Now we haven't replaced.

It is just sinking out of sight.

We all have.

We lost 2400 square miles of Louisiana.

Look at all the hermit crabs, Phillip.

Crabs on the bank.

Look at that.

Look at that.

So all this land that we're seeing here to the left, this is all.

New, all brand.

And how.

How long ago?

Two years.

Just two years.

Change.

This was readiness.

It was a bay, as far as you can see those trees back there.

This will all open water.

And within two years we built all this.

When you have river sediment, you can manipulate it, slow the water down, experience the growth ten times.

And what we're seeing right here is just that that's the sediment that has been deposited from the river as a result of of this diversion.

Within another month, all this will be vegetated all the way to the end.

And then it just extrapolates and it just keeps growing and growing and growing.

You build in landfills for habitat and this tidal surges, it's a win.

Win any way you look.

At it.

So what we're seeing here is a double impact for Louisiana.

For every mile of marsh you have, it knocks the storm surge down one foot.

Louisiana and.

New Orleans in particular cannot.

Survive if we don't do this because water is lapping or it's going to break down marsh down to there's nothing left to protect.

Us.

This is awesome because we've talked so much about the land loss we've suffered in Louisiana.

We're now reversing that in building land in areas that used to be land, then became water and is now being restored to land again.

And I thought this was all existing.

All right.

This is all new to.

Wow.

Look at this pop up.

Look, last month, this was underwater water because not a river dropped out.

Jump up and go walk out there.

I'm four miles out from the Mississippi River and Quarantine Bay and I'm standing on a sandbar that stretches for about a mile.

It's newly created land sediment from the Mississippi River, manmade Mother Nature made.

And this is what we need to do to save Louisiana.

This will be our next barrier island.

However, it's a massive challenge not only to Louisiana, but to the nation and the world.

In fact it is as important to the people in Chicago, Sheboygan, Shanghai and Shreveport and Shonga, Lou, as it is to those in Shark Bay, Schriever and Chauvin.

Many facets of Louisiana life and the many contributions Louisiana makes to the world are dependent upon the viability of the coastal marsh.

Unlike our neighbors to the east who beckon tourists to their white sandy beaches, Louisiana has a working coast and it feeds the nation in more ways than one.

Angela.

The state quenches the nation's thirst for oil and gas.

We're the second largest producer of oil in the country.

Goes on.

We also generate 25% of America's natural gas and petrochemicals, most of which are manufactured and shipped from the coastal marsh, Louisiana.

We in Louisiana also satisfies the world's hunger for seafood.

We're the second largest commercial fishing state in America, and the number one producer of shrimp, oysters and crawfish.

We've processed the ports of New Orleans and Baton Rouge, our engines of the south Louisiana economy.

In addition the port of south Louisiana, which is centered in the place and stretches for 54 miles along the river, parishes between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is the largest tonnage port in the Western Hemisphere, as well as the largest grain exporter and fat man in leadership.

But it's not just people who depend on Louisiana's coast for survival.

Louisiana's wetlands also provide sanctuary to some 300 species of native and migratory birds.

The sights and sounds have drawn millions of birdwatchers over the years, including former President Theodore Roosevelt.

Filmed walking the once flourishing habitat 1915, a mere century ago.

Today, the coast is a mere fragment of its former self.

When French explorers first arrived at Grand Isle as the only habitat barrier island that remains and it was decimated by Hurricane Ida in 2021.

Yet those who call the coast home are filled with the same tenacity and perseverance of those early settlers who brave the new world ever resilient in the face of change and the challenges wrought by Mother Nature.

Hello, I'm Robin Merrick, a friend of L.P..

Welcome back to this inside look at the new documentary, Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi or Anyplace Else.

If you love watching history come to life as it does in this original LP production.

You can tell us so with your call of support right now.

It's an easy process to support your public television in Louisiana.

Simply call or text.

Give 2888769 5000.

Become a member online at LP dawg.

Or scan the QR code that is on your screen.

You will want to do that during this program because we have a special member challenge you will hear about again in just a moment.

And also because LP truly does have the best thank you gift for our members.

Let's take a look another look rather at the gift offered exclusively exclusively during this program.

When you become a member, you help LBB tell Louisiana story to thank you choose from these commemorative gifts, become a sustaining member at $35 a month and receive the Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi combo.

That includes the signed hardcover coffee table book.

The limited edition signed photographic print collection by Carol Highsmith that includes Mike the Tiger, Get Chief Mardi Gras Indian fireworks over Cane River, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Coastal Marsh and the Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi two DVD set as well as the commemorative poster for $20 a month Receive the Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi Photography Collection of five limited edition photographic prints signed by Carol Highsmith for $13 a month receive the signed hardcover companion book signed by Jay Darden and Carol Highsmith, or for just $7 a month, receive the two DVD set of this documentary, plus Receive Visions LP Monthly Program Guide, Louisiana Life Magazine and LWB Passport.

The only place to Stream Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi or Anyplace Else.

We are back with Jay Dardenne, our creator and host of the program that we're watching, and Carol Highsmith.

Carol, glad to have you back in Louisiana as our photography documentarian making all of this possible, making some of this possible weather for the program.

And so, Jay, this has just been exciting because we've always said that Louisiana is the kind of state that you have to actually see and feel to believe.

Tell us about that.

Does that work with this lady, Caroline Smith, whose body of work is in the Library of Congress, as well as the work she's created for Louisiana with the companion, while Louisiana, Mississippi or any place else that.

But, Carol, photography is magnificent.

Every aspect of Louisiana is covered.

It is indeed.

And Carroll had an opportunity to spend some time with you on a couple of the photographs that are in the book.

And so that was exciting, just to just really sit and watch you do the work that you do.

And as someone who is from outside of the state.

Tell us about that, how we literally got a chance and we're getting a chance to see Louisiana through your lens, literally.

Well, first of all, you have to know, I've been here 5000.

I know there's some festival or Mardi Gras or whatever going on here and you just kind of come over here.

But anyway, me and my husband have traveled the roads of America for 42 years.

Wow.

So we've seen everything.

So we truly know that there ain't nothing like Louisiana.

I mean, there is you you are a testament to that because, let's see, the other 49 states.

You you arrived.

Down here and everything's historic.

And every there's festivals, every 5 seconds.

Everybody's dancing and singing and having a ball and there.

Is absolutely nothing like it.

I'm an American.

I've been everywhere you've been that I would talk about it for hours because it's that fabulous.

That's and then what they do is they dangle this in front of me and said, Well, you know, how would you like to do a companion book on this fabulous four hour docu commentary on Louisiana?

I mean, I couldn't get here fast enough.

I know we've got the program.

The program is exciting by itself, but the book just really takes it to a whole nother level.

Getting a chance to look at some of Carroll's works in the book.

And so I've got to stop there just to let everybody know this is the time to call in your pledge, your support to Lvb because of this alone.

Not to mention all the other great things that LTV does.

So eight, eight, eight, seven six, nine, 5000 is the number to call QR code is on your screen.

And in addition to all of that, we have the great member challenge that is going on right now.

So we want everyone to know that Roy or Martin and to thank him for this is challenging all of our viewers to donate tonight.

And they will match dollar for dollar up to the first $3,000 it's called in during this program only.

And so, in effect, this will make your contribution to help be worth twice as much.

And in addition and remember, you've got the thank you gifts coming as well.

We also have the special credit card offer that is a $3,000 pledge.

And of $3,000 or more on your credit card and you'll receive the only in Louisiana VIP package which includes an overnight stay at the still Magnolia house in Natchitoches a private Atchafalaya swamp tour and a gift for lazybones world famous for its meat pies, along with the Cajun food tour that includes five tasting stops for up to 14 people at locally owned Cajun restaurants around Lafayette.

And plus, you'll receive all of the gifts from tonight's show.

And you just heard Carol chuckling as I talked about the meat pies, lesbians and Natchitoches.

It sounds like you got a story there.

But the food alone, I mean, we could do a whole nother series just on the food in Louisiana.

Everything you mentioned is in the book a photograph of virtually every aspect of Louisiana that you mentioned.

It's 256 pages and coffee table size, obviously, and just a magnificent tribute to Louisiana photography.

It is.

It's really like sending a love letter to Louisiana.

It's all the things that are wonderful about our state.

Seriously?

Yeah.

And the thing is, you know, this might have been the case, but 30, 50 years ago.

But it's still there and it.

Still looks like it did.

And it's still all those festivals and the fun and the songs and the endless food.

Endless food.

I like to refer to it like that.

I don't know that I've ever been anywhere that I'm not said, Well, maybe I'll just have a little bite.

It's not that much.

Probably isn't going to be that good, and it always is so good you can't stand it.

So that's the problem, is you do maybe gain weight when you come down.

Maybe, just maybe, that's okay.

So it's a J.

You know, Carol's book is this companion to the the program that we're watching right now.

And I think people are going to really appreciate it even more so when the book arrives.

Tell us a bit about that.

What led you to even do the companion book to this?

Well, it really help is involved in kind of documentary documenting Carole's life.

And it became a natural fit with this presentation to have a book about Louisiana.

Carol's done several books about other states and Linda mentioned the executive producer had the idea that we ought to have a companion book to go with the actual show.

And it just it worked out perfectly timing wise.

It's been a a hectic but fun year to put all this together in in less than a year.

But like Carol and her husband were down here quite a bit traveling around with us.

And you're going to see some magnificent photography in this book.

And some photography up here on our screens behind us.

We've got footage from the actual documentary images from the book.

So it's a lot to see.

And we're going to put a pause right there to let you know about these great thank you gifts.

Because remember, one of the thank you gifts is the book.

So here you go.

When you become a member, you help.

LBB Tell Louisiana's story to thank you, choose from these commemorative gifts, become a sustaining member at $35 a month and receive the Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi combo.

That includes the signed hardcover coffee table book.

The limited edition signed photographic print collection by Carol Highsmith that includes Mike the Tiger Pig Chief, Mardi Gras Indian fireworks over Cane River, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Coastal Marsh and the Why Louisiana Eat Mississippi two DVD set, as well as the commemorative poster for $20 a month Receive the Why Louisiana eight Mississippi Photography Collection A five limited edition photographic prints signed by Carol Highsmith for $13 a month, received the signed hardcover companion book signed by Jay Darden and Carol Highsmith, or for just $7 a month, perceive the two DVD set of this documentary, plus Receive Visions LP BP's monthly program Guide, Louisiana Life Magazine and LP Passport The only Place to Stream Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi or Anyplace Else.

Great Thank you Gifts.

And of course, we want to thank our corporate challenge partner this evening.

Roy O. Martin is challenging all of our viewers to donate tonight, and he's going to match dollar for dollar up to $3,000 of gifts that are called in during this break.

So remember, that means twice as much to help.

So thanks to Royal Martin and their support of Beat.

And lastly, the $3,000 special credit card offer.

Don't want to leave that out for your pledge of 3000 or more on a credit card.

You'll receive the only in Louisiana VIP package.

These things can only happen here in Louisiana.

So keep that in mind.

This package includes an overnight stay at the steel magnolia house in necklace, a private Atchafalaya swamp tour, and a gift certificate for Lazybones world famous again for its meat pies, along with the Cajun food tour that includes five stops for 14 people.

So that's you and 13 of your friends at locally owned Cajun restaurants around Lafayette.

Plus, you will receive all of the gifts from tonight's Carole Jay.

We got more the program to watch.

I'm just excited.

By the music and a lot of looks at Louisiana in ways that maybe you haven't looked at it before and a lot of fun.

All right.

We'll be right back with more.

The program.

Properly suspend.

The second wave of French immigrants to make their way to Louisiana, those we call Acadians not come directly from France.

Cajuns are the descendants of exiles from Acadia.

Acadia what's now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island in Canada, who originally came from France in the 1600s.

So Cajuns, the descendants of those people, some of them who came to Louisiana.

For more than 100 years, these French Catholics flourished.

But when the British won the seven Years War, also known as the French and Indian War, things took a tragic turn in the jukebox play.

The British victors became convinced that the settlers had sided with their French countrymen.

They demanded the residents to renounce their French identity and their Catholic faith and pledge never to take up arms against the crown.

The settlers said, Man, No, I don't think so.

And the British government began an ethnic cleansing designed to destroy Acadians identity beginning in 1755, La Grande Durand, Jamal The great expulsion began.

Thousands were drown, starved or even murdered.

It would take the British crown almost 250 years to apologize for the brutality inflicted our Acadian ancestors.

You are looking at the Queen's Royal Proclamation of 2003, which is signed by Adrian of the upper Right, who represented the Queen as the governor general of Canada.

And on the left it's in English.

On the right, it's in French.

It is the first time in the history of the British Empire that they admitted the deportation of the Acadians was done in the name of the Crown.

That's number one.

Number two, it's an admission that many Acadians died and suffered as a result of the British action.

And thirdly, and most importantly, it expresses sorrow and regret and finally establishes a day of commemoration.

July 28th of every year as a day of remembrance of suffering of our ancestors, and the fact that we survive today as a culture in North America and throughout the world at this time.

This is the sixth apology ever rendered in the name of the British Crown in 1200 years.

It took nine years from 1755 to 1764 for many to make the trek.

They came to the Port of New Orleans and other makeshift ports along what came to be known as the Acadian Coast.

At the time the area was known as attack Apollo after the Native American tribe already living there.

The legislature eventually identified 22 parishes to comprise Acadian.

Included are seven parishes named for Saint John, Charles, Bernard, Helena, James, Mary Martin and Landry.

And then there's the eighth parish.

There's one interesting parish that has a saint name that we see all the time today.

But was not a canonized Catholic saint in the Saint Tammany Parish.

Tamara And many people refer to him as kind of this indigenous American saint who was a peacemaker and advocated for peace.

And there's certain elements of mythology here and there's certain elements of truth.

But this notion of a saint, Tamara and in Saint Tammany came out of that.

If another parish were to be added, it would no doubt be named.

Saint Drew, the exiled Acadians, were led by the legendary Joseph Beausoleil Broussard, who had commanded resistance in Leucadia but was nothing.

Louisiana was the perfect fit.

They were a close knit, family oriented group.

They were French speaking.

The language already spoken here, and they were Catholic.

They became a part of the religious majority, not the unwelcomed minority.

The Acadian people ultimately became known as Cajuns.

It seems the word.

Cajun is a corruption of the word Acadian in Louisiana French.

The word was Chaldean.

And then that became Cajun.

The Acadians had found the promised Land.

Early settlers lived solely off the land, hunting, trapping and fishing in the swamps.

Marsh and bayous were fertile ground, and the bounty of South Louisiana overflowed like a bowl of shrimp stew.

And their age old skills of seamanship were handed down through generations, laying the groundwork for what would ultimately become Louisiana's billion dollar seafood industry.

The Cajuns could not easily escape their perceived status as second class French people, but they overcame it with the tenacity and independence and utter joie de vie that love of life which permeates Louisiana today.

This communicable.

Did you make one?

Oh, you make it the big one.

I'm the 10th generation Landry from French and the eighth generation Nova Scotia all still okay.

And the Cajun, the people that live in these bayous that sheltered here a couple of hundred years ago.

You didn't have no choice.

There wasn't.

They didn't shadow here.

They were too out here hoping that they wouldn't survive.

Well, we'll come help you both.

Okay.

Warren Daughtry.

Sure.

You know, we've been back here all our lives, and we just do what we got to do to make a living.

You know what you do?

You can survive off the land.

Really?

With my grandpa done.

With my daddy.

Done.

And even what I'm doing now, there's always change.

And that's my problem.

I'm kind of old school.

I don't like this.

Hard to change.

Their unique dialect is a wonder to the world and even to some in Louisiana.

You ain't got no fight left in.

It often blends broken English with their own brand of French.

Or foreign from that busker share compadre can't wait to scope along Florida.

My mom will pop my grandma and grandpa Russian from Russia to more Opry cookout.

In other words, I just dug more detail.

We are probably on the right bomber should push our policy more chronologically for like a father and all the people defied all during class I don't all with the on Pieta yeah Kate Mulcair you fight on pretty rigorously to party.

And I've been real busy.

Cajuns love to tell tales and they love to laugh both at themselves and about the world's foibles.

I ran into my cousin last week.

Yeah.

How's your wife?

I said, Oh, she's an angel.

But I thought I said, Angel, I am now a star.

Oh, she said, You're right.

Because if you look up Star in the dictionary, it says that it's a mass of compressed gas.

Cajuns have long infused Louisiana's culture with merrily.

Our state hosts more than 400 festivals every year, most of which are in South Louisiana, making Cajun Country the festival capital of the world.

We have two going on here.

Just chicken and sausage and TLC.

He got a little road kill to fly.

If something walks, crawls, flies or swims, we have a festival to salute it, and then we throw it in a gumbo and eat it.

What's often thought of today as the most quintessential Cajun dish?

It's really arguably a Creole dish.

Which is not to say the cages didn't add to it.

But if you look at the ingredients, they grow into it.

The roux comes from, you know, pre-revolutionary France.

The red pepper comes from the Spanish who got it from Native Americans.

The sassafras, which is what filet is.

Brown.

Sassafras came from the Native Americans here and the okra came from Africa.

And the name gumbo came from Africa.

It's got a beautiful room made with face clothes.

That's the one.

Oh.

Oh, close.

Even though it's a little bit hackneyed to use gumbo as a metaphor, South Louisiana, it's incredibly apt in ways that people don't often think of.

Because when you look at what goes into making the actual dish called gumbo the ingredients come from several different ethnic groups.

Perhaps the biggest festival of them all is the Cajun Mardi Gras, known as the career du Mardi Gras.

This celebration is completely different than the traditional parades in Louisiana's large cities, but no less entertaining.

Dating back to the earliest days of the late 19th century.

Towns like Eunice Chargepoint and Mamou featured masked riders on horseback chicken chasing general revelry and no shortage of adult beverages.

It's all going to do.

We'll get on the roof.

We're going to one guy's house now.

When we get there.

When You got going.

You're going to have some.

You're going to want a chicken.

You don't want a guinea.

You don't want to ride out in some grottoes, maybe 50 cent liver.

They got got to walk up and you don't want no piece of paper, no yogurt saying you're going to die if you go across.

Are you going to beg?

You do whatever you got to do so we can get what they got.

Mardi Gras.

Oh, a lot of money.

Let's get you back to the Messiah.

Let's go give.

That bird to me.

They need a baby's gumbo.

There is no question Cajuns have left their indelible mark on Louisiana from their infectious music to legendary politicians to their spicy food.

Hi.

I'm glad you to see me.

I guarantee literally larger than life characters like Justin Wilson.

We're going to cook a pot roast, George.

We take this wine now as a cup of German smoked salt, Worcestershire sauce and smell good already.

Who really?

A folk Cajun from Livingston Parish in Paul Prudhomme, a true Cajun from Opelousas, became celebrity chefs long before the Food Network whetted Viewers appetites.

Much more better.

I guarantee they in turn pass the torch to Susan Spicer, Donna Link and John Foles.

I was to be born and reared in the swamps of Louisiana Saint James Parish.

That torch also got passed to a wannabe native Massachusetts transplant, Emeril Lagasse.

Little lessons like that, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

All made names for themselves, blending Cajun cooking, usually fried or blackened with Creole, largely a product of New Orleans kitchens run by pioneers like Dooky Chase and his indomitable wife, Leah.

I went and took a chance to get some meat.

And we Louisianans love to eat from Po'boys to Rockefellers.

Oysters, that is.

There's gumbo, jambalaya, crawfish to fe, kosher underlay, catfish, red fish, boiled, broiled, blackened and fried bread pudding, bananas.

FOSTER Benny's pralines, meat pies and tamales washed down with a wide variety of beverages like Dixie Jacks, a bead of beer barks, root beer, and a host of other craft beers.

Hurricane Sazerac, Cafe, Olé and multiple brands of coffee, and one of Louisiana's tastiest creations and the least photogenic dish in world history.

Boudin Things are changing in kitchens everywhere.

And some of Louisiana's most iconic food products come from Cajun country.

Of course, there's Tony Sastry seasoning.

Tony's sashimi makes everything taste great.

And there are countless hot sauce brands, most notably the original Louisiana Hot Sauce and the world famous Tabasco, manufactured on Avery Island near New Iberia, to name just two.

And who could forget that sweet, sticky goodness, manufactured right here in the heart of Cajun country?

I'm talking about stains, cane sirup.

And.

This is the next ingredient to go in the Holy.

Dries, the Holy Trinity.

And of course, we call it the Holy Trinity because it's omnipresent in our pot onions, celery, bell pepper and garlic and a lot of it.

And this stops the room from cooking, but it automatically adds the great flavor that's necessary to to know that we're making a good traditional South Louisiana gumbo.

So the Trinity is in the pot.

And the Holy Trinity.

Of course, there's a double meaning in Louisiana because of our Catholic origins, as well as these ingredients that they represent what the human gumbo contributed to the real game.

Right And I think the early cooks were basically saying, like the good Lord in our life, he's everywhere in south Louisiana.

So is onion, celery, bell pepper and cast iron pot.

With their exodus to south Louisiana, the Acadians also brought with them a love of music Saturday Night and the Moon.

Despite its catchy beat, Cajun music, is rooted in the ballads that describe the suffering of the Acadian people.

We know that the Acadians, when they came here starting in 1764, they did not have accordions.

I mean, that would not be.

Introduced to them.

Until much, much later.

You know, they had lost a lot of their property when the British kicked them out and burned their dwellings and destroyed their crops.

So don't really know what they but they showed up where they may have been performing on a cappella.

Obviously, eventually they got their hands on fiddle and guitars and added the accordion and.

Cajun music later transformed to dance and became essential to the Cajun lifestyle.

Small togethers on the front porch balls, amazing in public dances and dance halls called fado.

Those were essential.

After a hard week's work in the twenties and thirties, early Cajun legends like Harry showed and I'm a diehard Dwyane made the lilting love song Jolly Blond, the unofficial Cajun national anthem.

Shug was a white Acadian born on Cat Island.

He's generally considered the godfather of Cajun music.

Ardoin was a Creole born near Brazil who fancied the accordion like era's legendary Dale Maynard and Eunice Dennis McGee.

Cajun musicians through the years have been mostly white, but the Acadian population is rich with Creole influence.

One can share all of the.

French speaking blacks in Acadiana, some slaves and some Jean de Coolidge leave for free.

People of color also contributed to the culture of their Cajun cohabitants collective.

They created new genres of music.

First there was Lala, the forerunner of Louisiana's truly original genre zydeco.

A generous Creole born and raised in Saint Landry Parish.

Where the Bayou Meet the Prairie Go on.

A Louisiana.

Creole is.

The people who create Zydeco music.

Zydeco music throughout the.

Years have evolved, and a lot of people don't go back far enough to explain the way people can understand where it.

Actually comes from.

In the moment.

And then what is it doing?

The importance of it would in the moment to learn about that, in the moment that I thought I did.

But Zydeco music started off from people singing in the fields and at gatherings there was a gathering called You Come Out and then go up on the stage.

This jury stuff was done.

Just by using your voice, clapping your hands and stuff in your feet.

The jury gatherings were done.

Around a fire in a circle and they pass around a jar.

And if you took the jar and took a drink out of it, then you had to add a verse.

To the song.

And it was like, you know, sometimes even Mozart equals up easily all of them are zydeco.

So personally, you know, Zydeco supposedly came from the jury.

There's a little song they call Zydeco if possibly that's is no salt in your snap been through.

Clifton Chenier was the father of zydeco.

He was an accordionist who teamed with his brother Cleveland to introduce the front trois or rub board worn around the shoulders and rubbed with a spoon.

The triangle and the fiddle were added later, along with other instruments.

One drummer, Clifton Chenier, received a posthumous Lifetime Achievement award from the Grammy organization in 2014.

His role, The King of Zydeco, was filled by Boozer Chavez and then Stanley Dural, Jr, known as Buckwheat Zydeco, a queen of zydeco, also emerged in Ida Guillory, a Grammy winning accordionist.

But it was Sidney Simian, known as Rock in Sidney, who elevated Zydeco to the national stage.

Well.

Don't mess with my and don't mess with my team, too.

That song won a Grammy in 1985 for best ethnic or traditional folk.

Recording was born in a book.

It feels.

I can't even describe it.

I mean.

In recent years, multiple Louisiana Grammy winners have celebrated the Cajun and Zydeco sounds on the national stage Chubby Carrier Terrance Simeon, Gino Dela Fosse, Joel, Sonia Wayne Toups, Michael Doucet and Beausoleil and the Lost Bayou Ramblers.

Perhaps the most beloved of all Cajun music performers, is a rock star in Quebec, in Nova Scotia, from where the Cajun people were exiled.

Zachary Richard, a songwriter, a poet, a storyteller and historian.

Zydeco, all of us live.

Whose eloquence and love of his ancestry make him the Cajun ambassador par excellence.

Because so they about that in I recall the parts of.

All Louisiana musicians are my brothers and sisters, and for me to be part of this community is very inspiring.

Certainly crossover country cousins Sammy and Doug Kershaw also cemented their places in history.

KAPLAN Sammy Kershaw hit number one on the country chart.

She don't know she's beautiful.

In 1993.

She she we're sure she's beautiful.

But mom and pop up a.

Little boy near Doug who didn't speak English until the age of eight, but mastered the fiddle at five foot Cameron Parish on the map when his autobiographical Louisiana man became a top ten country hit.

How to Make a Living in his enthusiasm.

I'm gonna make a living to do the album.

The song was broadcast back to Earth by the Apollo crew as they were about to land on the moon in 1969.

Aboard Small Step for Man A Prayer about how to make her name in this movie.

Man, you.

Came out of the marshes and swamps of Acadiana Rises, the Louisiana prairie.

Well, wait a minute.

You say Louisiana doesn't have a prairie?

Well, yes, we do.

The great flat grasslands that begin in Canada and stretch all the way through the heartland of America actually end in the southernmost part of the state in veal plan, otherwise known as Flat Town in, the American Midwest, the chief crops of the prairie are wheat, oats and barley.

In Louisiana, our grain is rice.

On Interstate ten, you'll see this exit for Iowa mispronounced by those Midwesterners who settle there in the late 1880s, the president of the Iowa State School of Agriculture came south to confirm that the land was suitable for rice growing.

There was more than a grain of truth to that theory.

Like the Midwest, our prairie land is flat, but unlike the Midwest, Louisiana gets a lot of rain.

The proven formula for success when growing rice, the I-10 corridor from Lafayette to the Texas border is lined with rice fields, which double as crawfish ponds during the off season of Arles Parish is the northernmost tip of Cajun country.

The geographic center of the state is three miles north of the parish seat of.

If you're at a convention in New York City and you see a name tag identifying someone as born along Coco Coville goes on to sell Gremio Laborde, Lemoine Minou Moreau, Roy Rabelais or Tarzan.

Write it down.

You can be assured their immediate forebears are from a Voyles parish.

And if you're at that same convention and you see a name tag reading our Doyen Montano Foray LaFleur Swallow or Vidrine, you can know that their family roots trace back to Evangeline Parish.

Now the parish seat of Evangeline is filled plat.

It's only 25 miles from Marksville as the crow flies.

But back in the day when there were phone books, if you compare the two, as I have done, you would find in Marksville there were dozens of LA boards, not a single Vidrine and only nine Fontana growers.

But in the Ville Platte phone book lower only two LA boards and 185 of the drains and more than 500 font in those.

It's like the Berlin Wall between those two communities.

Who could forget the other evangelists synonymous with Louisiana?

Nearly 90 miles south of Marksville is Saint Martinville, the setting of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's classic poem Evangeline, where a lonely Cajun girl awaits the arrival of her long lost lover, Gabriel.

The site is memorialized by the magnificent Evangeline Oak.

This historical Evangeline is believed to have been an orphan girl named Emmeline Le Bish, who was said to have been separated from her fiancee Louis Arsenault during the expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia.

The whole romance about the Cajuns was really tied up in that poem, and that went international.

So everybody felt like they knew South Louisiana, and to a degree they did.

So when you have that kind of history and that kind of romance surrounding, the state's history, I mean, what state can really compete with us on that?

They really can't.

I mean, there's no state that has stories like that.

You know, Texas has its revolution and Mexico and all that.

Okay.

But Jane got Longfellow's for him.

A nearby statue was commissioned by the actress Doris Del Rio, who played Evangeline in the 1929 movie of the same name.

Nearby St Mary Parish was the location of the very first Tarzan movie in 1917.

Tarzan of the Apes, starring Elmo.

Lincoln was filmed in Franklin.

The bayous of St Mary Parish replicated the African jungle long before special Effects and CGI.

Members of the New Orleans Athletic Club actually dressed up as apes to round out the cast.

Elmo actually killed a lion that went berserk during filming.

That's true.

Afterwards, the cast and crew retired to the local Casey Hall to enjoy a lion soul speaker.

Not really.

Tarzan was the precursor of what is now a thriving film industry in Louisiana.

Where everything from Steel Magnolias to pitch perfect in 12 Years a Slave has been filmed in recent years.

Raising horses and racing horses are part of life on the Louisiana prairie and throughout Cajun country.

Small towns like Erath, Morris, New Iberia and Catahoula.

And further stretch win number 142 for Randy Romero.

Sired Randy.

Kent Desormeaux Any dealer who say and Calvin Borel all Hall of Fame jockeys and Triple Crown winners.

And speaking of races and winners, politics has been a contact sport in Louisiana for decades.

And many of our most colorful politicians come from Cajun country.

Like Representative Emile Carroll, he would never vote for a tax, but always wanted to bring home the bacon to Evangeline Parish.

He made a profound statement about Louisiana politics when he said, My friend, let me tell you the first and most important.

Rule of politics never, ever let the cold, clammy hand of consistency.

Rest upon your shoulder.

Louisiana native James Carville, who is the lead strategist for President Bill Clinton, knows A thing or two about politics.

I invited him to sit down for a chat about some of the state's greatest political legends.

James, first of all, I want to thank you for dressing up for, helping.

Me and I never miss an opportunity to brand our word of direction on Meet the Press.

We're we're in the secret tunnel room of the Heidelberg, the Old Heidelberg Hotel.

It's now the Hilton in Baton Rouge, where a tunnel leads to the King Hotel across the street.

Huey Long used it private purposes and to escape the press.

Let's fast forward to Edwin Edwards, because he's the he's the first Catholic governor elected in the in the 1900s.

You've talked about the power of the governor's head to carry the Catholic population, but here comes Edwin Edwards.

Totally different in messaging and in style and in personality than all of his predecessors.

Other than Bill Clinton.

I've never been around a politician.

That had the.

Image skill that Edwin Edwards had.

I had a brand name.

His father came from Scottish origins.

His mother's family was blue, yet they came from Continental.

So they didn't come by way of Nova Scotia.

And truthfully, Edwin Edwards was never Cajun.

Who got the Cape and gone, who paved the parking lot at the football stadium, who call it in the highway after them.

But because she taught him French, Cajun culture and language and he could talk it fluently, then everybody assumed he was Cajun, that he just lets you believe that.

He's in a jailhouse, not.

Just as a pirate.

Jean Lafitte captured the imagination and admiration of New Orleans in the early 1800s.

Edwards captured the hearts of Louisiana, maintained his electability throughout the last three decades of the 20th century.

He was the greatest politician you've seen in Louisiana during your lifetime.

In my lifetime, he would have to be.

Every time I shave and look in the mirror, I see him.

The state was seemingly infatuated with the lovable rogue.

Despite the cloud of federal investigations and brazen womanizing that dogged him as both a congressman, a governor.

Many people in Louisiana considered me to be shady, dishonest, crooked, slick.

Watch what you have.

And it's something that I'm prepared to live with if for no other reason, because my mother and I know it's not so.

But she's probably the only other person who's who fully believes that.

A flamboyant populist champion, Edwards never shied away from his flashy lifestyle as a gambler and ladies man.

So, you know, so he became known as the silver zipper.

Edwards Quick and political savvy have proven unparalleled in Louisiana history.

He gave us memorable quotes.

Particularly when he was running against David Train.

He said, My opponent, Dave Train is so slow, it takes him an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.

And I've just been asked by a reporter what they think my chances are winning.

And I told him I think it's pretty good because at this point, I could not be defeated unless I was caught in bed with either a dead girl or alive boy.

What politician?

Anywhere he could get away with a line like that.

Edwin Edwards.

Edwards did win that election with 62% of the vote.

Equally as memorable was when he compared himself to his 1991 gubernatorial opponent, KKK grand wizard David Duke.

When some reporters asked, Nobody's more diametrically opposed politically than you and David do.

Is there any place conceivable for you two could be alike and without even thinking?

Edwards says yes.

As a matter of fact, there is.

We were both wizards under the sheets.

And there was the subsequent Edwards Duke runoff that prompted the state's most memorable bumper sticker ever.

Vote for.

The Crook.

It's important.

Ladies and gentlemen, the governor of the state of Louisiana, Edwin Edwards.

Well, enough people did.

Edwards won again in a landslide.

When I first got elected to the state Senate, Republicans from Baton Rouge expected to be very conservative.

I went and saw him.

This was when he was elected for his final term, and he told me, he said, I know your district better than you know your district.

He was he was right.

And he said, you're not going to vote with me very much.

But when you can, I hope you'll do so and I hope you'll listen and help us where we can.

And that's the way he treated his foes or his perceived foes.

The idea that he would not like you because you're a. Republican or you were black or.

You were Jewish or you were anything else that didn't.

He really was pretty much absent of any kind of prejudice that being.

A little more than a decade later, a Catholic Cajun lady married to a Spaniard was elected governor.

Today marks the first time that an honor such as this has been earned by a daughter, a wife, a mother, a grandmother.

Another one of the Diana's most colorful political legends was a perennial candidate who was never elected.

Still, he could have made the hatchet man Hall of Fame.

This is Warren James, Foggy Mountain number 66 on your voting machine.

His name was Warren J. Moti of New Iberia.

But he was better as pudgy.

He ran numerous times for Congress insurance commissioner in the state Senate.

He was usually in the race to attack a candidate on behalf of another candidate.

The trigger man against me.

Carlos Marcello is against me.

Although this was never admitted by any of the principals.

But it became fairly obvious who benefited from Peggy's antics?

Me.

You always knew who he was against, but you never knew what or who he was for.

Oh, Weiner.

Charlie.

Usually sheriff of Saint Martin Parish, is against me.

The coaches are my very opposed.

Jerry Watney is against me.

I'm in downtown Winfield, Louisiana, at the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame.

Let's check it out.

New is another one of a kind Cajun politician was Daily Joseph Cat Doucette, who served off and on from the 19 to the 1960s as sheriff of Saint Landry Parish.

He couldn't speak English fluently until he was 19 years old.

He spoke perfect Cajun French.

He hired someone to help him with his pronunciation and diction when he decided to run for office.

I'm not sure it worked.

In one of the reelection campaigns, he pounded on a podium and said, Me.

I'm going to win this race.

I'm going to win by landscape.

He said, My opponent over there, he got all kind of things, wrote down and he read them to you.

Me, When I talk, I talk out.

Of my head.

One time the press asked the sheriff, What do you think about juvenile delinquency?

He thought for a moment and said, Well.

I don't know too.

Much about it, but if it's good for the kids, I'm it.

And then he was asked what he thought about the civil rights bill.

He said, well, if we owe it, we ought to pay it.

There are political posters and memorabilia everywhere, even in here.

You can wait here.

Well, some 30 miles south of Saint Landry Parish, approximately 10% of the population still speak French.

Of course, that's down in Lafayette, the unofficial capital of Cajun country with a 65% Catholic population.

Lafayette Parish has the distinction of having the highest number of Catholics of any parish or county in America.

Lafayette is one of 21 cities in the country named for the Marquis de Lafayette, an aristocrat who became a general in the Revolutionary War at age 19.

He George Washington, among his closest friends.

He was one of three European transplants with Louisiana connections who had a profound impact on America's victory in the revolution.

Every war.

The second was the Spanish governor, Bernardo de Galvez, who led victories over the British in Mobile, Natchez, in Baton Rouge.

The Only battles outside the 13 colonies.

The to the third was an Irishman, Oliver Pollock, a wealthy New Orleanian who contributed today's equivalent of $1,000,000,000 to the war effort.

He was also responsible for creating the dollar sign with poor penmanship, writing the dead as pesos.

The pianists ran together, resulting the modern day symbol of money.

Lafayette Parish is also home to one of the most unusual characters in Louisiana history.

Dudley Jay Loblaw.

If you had to tell me the most interesting person of that era in Louisiana politics was Cassandra Dudley, jailable.

He always.

Supported Protestant governors because he knew he could get anything that he wanted.

And those Protestant governors needed his support.

He carries the upper hand.

There were indeed two characters they needed to get.

They'd get 40%.

I they'd get 80 and everything north of Bunkie.

He was a native of Youngsville, outside of Lafayette.

He represented southwest Louisiana for one term in the House of Representatives beginning in 1920 and then served four terms in the state Senate from 1940 to 1964, interrupted twice by unsuccessful runs for governor.

Dudley made a profound impact on Louisiana in three distinct ways.

First, politically, he literally served in elected office from the 1920s to the 1960s.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

The news every Sunday from 12 to 1230.

Dudley J. Loblaw had the news and French learned he had he and people would stop and turn the radio on, quit eating to listen to Crusade.

He gave the news in French, but a lot of times it was interjected with politics.

Secondly, Dudley was proud of his Acadian heritage and was a champion of the French language in Louisiana.

This is hard to believe, but it was against the law to speak French in the public schools of Louisiana until late in the 20th century.

Because he elected John Lucas and Governor Mike Kiss in returned the favor by creating the state agency code to fill Council for Development of French in Louisiana.

So he was very close to MacArthur, and he knew he was going to France for a big Acadian reunion.

And he asked MacArthur to introduce to get him a meeting with Pope Pius to 12th and Rome.

And so here's a photograph of Dudley Leibler greeting Pope Pius the 12th.

And shortly after this was taken in 1996, Dudley pulled out a rosary and asked the pope to bless.

So he has a picture of the pope consecrating this rosary as soon as Dudley back to Louisiana.

He bought three cartons of rosaries and he spent the next two years telling women, look, I'm going to give you this rosary, was blessed by the pope.

But thirdly, and most importantly, Dudley made his mark as an entrepreneur.

He became a salesman supreme and started several companies development and poise carry on was for prostate problems, would sell toys.

He had comics, T-shirts, had a coal man pitch.

The Larkin this man did was just phenomenal and ultimately creating an elixir 14% alcohol.

Paul had a call as a jokester or they'd ask him, Why don't you call it how to call?

He says, I had to call it something.

Actually, the name comes from this poster here, Happy Day.

Company started a headache medicine, and so he took a D, a C, O, And that's how Harry Call comes from Happy Day Company.

What he did, he knew the Cajun diet wasn't the healthiest, so he used a combination of vitamins that he had gotten from a doctor and he added or 10% alcohol.

And at that time he had blue laws where certain days and in many places you couldn't buy alcohol, which you could buy, had a cough and you could get justice drunk with 14% alcohol as 14% white.

But he was a genius.

He'd do a caravan show.

They would go all over the country.

The habit called Caravan was an extravaganza.

There was a ride to the show and they had movie stars like Dr. La moore, Mickey Rooney, Carmen Miranda, to name a few.

And the way to get into the show was with a box top and.

My dad used to always say, If you didn't like the show, well, then we will refund you about your box.

Stop.

We selected a housewife from our studio audience, Mrs. Cooper.

Her partner is a special guest, Senator Dudley Le Blanc.

And he suddenly became a national figure.

He was a guest on the Groucho Marx show.

You bet your life.

Do you know who your state senator is?

Oh, no, I. I don't know.

Senator, what do you think of a voter who doesn't know who the senator is?

Well, it's not necessarily her fault.

There must be something wrong with him because everybody in Louisiana knows who I am.

Well, Senator, do you have any particular political philosophy?

I have always advocated the idea of helping poor and helping the rich and make those able to pay pay the taxes.

Well, do you still believe in that?

Oh, I tell you, you still believe in that.

So I tell you, not so much.

Now.

Well, what caused this sudden change in your political philosophy?

Well, you know, last year I made $5 million.

How did you manage to make $5 million in one year, Senator?

Well, you know, I own the corporation to make it.

That makes how to call.

We manufacture how to call Attica.

What's that good for?

Well, it was good for $5 million for me last year, and that's good enough for.

Me.

Well, the next year it was $25 million.

And by the time the Federal Trade Commission came in and shut down, the production of had a Carl Dudley had pocketed a small fortune.

What was had a call good for?

Well, the promotional brochure enclosed in the box said that had a cow cured diabetes paralysis, epileptic fits, delirium tremens, neuralgia, migraines, arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, high or low blood pressure.

And that run down condition following colds.

Of course, it did nothing of the sort, but it 12% alcohol by volume.

It didn't much matter.

Bill Nettles and the Dixie Blue Boys performed a little ditty that Dudley's not so subtle way of marketing how to call as an aphrodisiac.

Down in Louisiana, in the bright Sunshine.

If we kept playing that song, you'd hear the second verse.

I went down to the farm to rest about a week, but the farmer's wife, she started walking in her sleep.

She did the had a cow boogie.

You must get all the.

Time or the third verse.

If you're radiator leaks in your motor, stand still.

Give her had a call and watch her boogie up the hill.

It's not hard.

See why many see Coos and Dud is the most interesting Louisianan of them all.

Although others might argue that top billing goes to a New Orleans woman who could cast a spell on you.

Download him with her.

The Black.

Tree.

The third wave of French emigrants to Louisiana occurred in 1809 when the Islanders arrived in New Orleans.

Like the Acadians, they did not come directly from France.

They were inhabitants of Caribbean islands, like Martinique and San Domain.

The present day Haiti, long gone after the Haitian Revolution, left Santo Maine's plantation economy in shambles, many relocated to Cuba and then Louisiana.

America had banned the importation of slaves in 1808, but a congressional exemption allowed entry to these 10,000 refugees, including slave owners, both white and of color, and the enslaved people who had fled alongside them, doubling the population of New Orleans.

They brought with them the voodoo religion, which they added to the city's preexisting version of voodoo, a synthesis of African and Native American rituals and worldview and Roman Catholicism.

It's unclear how voodoo originally Louisiana.

The problem is under the code noir in colonial French Louisiana, it's illegal to practice any religion that's not Roman Catholicism.

So even if somebody was practicing a different religion, they wouldn't tell you for fear of prosecution.

We get a lot of stories about voodoo going all the way back to the 18th century, but those are all from people who don't practice voodoo, who talk about things that they claim to have seen.

These people are all outsiders.

They're invariably white and hostile racially to the practitioners.

Man You better stay with.

Marie Laveau, the legendary Voodoo Queen was a prosperous Catholic Creole woman, one of the many powerful property owning women of color who dominated the French Quarter in the 1800s.

Marie and other spiritual leaders use the unique blend of African native and European folk traditions that make up New Orleans voodoo to heal those in need and honor the spirits.

Both she and her daughter of the same name, enthralled and entertained spectators on Sundays in Congo Square.

Now Louis Armstrong Park.

Congo Square is sacred ground.

This was the place where Africans started to gather in the 1700s on Sundays for markets and for gatherings, because Sunday was the free day for people who were enslaved under this brutal system of slavery in the South.

So they knew that this was their free day.

They could trade, they could make some money and things like that.

But it was also a time.

Over the whole hundred year period or more that Africans gather here where they.

Did their dances from Senegal and the dances from the Congo and the dances from Benin, which was Dahomey, or the dances from Haiti or Cuba.

So people dance.

They tried to create the drums or the instruments that they had in Africa.

So this is probably a place that Africans did not want to miss.

On every Sunday throughout the year, the great.

The other contribution offered by these former island inhabitants was a cross sugar cane.

It had been introduced into the Louisiana economy in 1751 by Jesuit priests.

But the influx of sugar farmers from the Caribbean helped to make it a giant crop in the American economy.

Every harvest when the black smoke.

Filled the sky, Louisiana produces approximately 13 million tons of cane yearly in 22 parishes, generating an overall economic value of $3 billion.

Burning American, the very first mayor of New Orleans, was an Islander named Etienne Bora.

But perhaps Mayor Burridge greatest contribution was that he invented the process of granulated sugar.

Thank you.

Yes.

So we're familiar, Borah.

We'd all be stirring our coffee.

But a stock.

Of sugar cane.

Hello, and welcome back.

How much are we loving this original LPG production?

Why?

Louisiana?

Mississippi?

Are any place else.

I'm Robyn Merrick, friend of APB, and we will be rejoined by creator and host DJ Darden, executive producer Linda Midget and photographer Carol Highsmith.

Just a moment.

We have loved hearing from them.

But first, we want to remind you that it is you, our members, who make possible everything you see on LP.

You are the public in public television.

That is why it is so important for us to hear from you.

Please give us a call.

The number is 888769 5000 text Give to that same number and make your pledge online at LP dawg.

Or you can scan the QR code that you see on your screen if you're already a member, please consider making an additional one time contribution to take advantage of these exclusive offers.

Let's take a look at them right now.

When you become a member, help LP tell Louisiana story to thank you.

Choose from these commemorative gifts, become a sustaining member at $35 a month and receive the why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi combo That includes the signed hardcover coffee table book.

The limited edition signed photographic print collection by Carol Highsmith that includes Mike the Tiger, Big Chief, Mardi Gras Indian fireworks over Cane River, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Coastal Marsh.

And the Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi two DVD set, as well as the commemorative poster for $20 a month Receive the Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi Photography Collection of five limited edition photographic prints signed by Carol Highsmith for $13 a month, receive the signed hardcover companion book signed by Jay Dardenne and Carol Highsmith, or for just $7 a month, receive the two DVD set of this documentary, plus Receive Visions LP B's Monthly Program Guide, Louisiana Life Magazine and Libby Passport.

The only place to Stream Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi or Anyplace Else.

We are back with Jay Darden, our creator and host of the program this evening, Linda Midgette, our executive producer here at Loop, and Carol Highsmith, our photographer extraordinaire, who's been the photographer capturing all of these images that we've had a chance to watch on on film.

So, Jay, this has to be a special moment for you that your presentation that you have done in so many places across the state of Louisiana, so many places even across the nation, it's actually coming to life in the form of this documentary.

There's no better way for it to come to life than to be a part of helping me and to be here for Louisianans going forward and to have people having an opportunity to to support help me by buying a DVD or buying one of the books that with Carol photography on it.

And, you know, there's so many great stories to tell about Louisiana and it's taken 4 hours to tell the stories that we've told and there's still some left.

I was going to say 4 hours may not be enough.

Lots to tell there.

And Linda, you all are talking about here, they'll be making this an educational program, a way that there'll be some educational outreach beyond what we're watching.

We are we're going to take this content and find ways to get it into the school system from K-12.

Students are required to learn Louisiana history.

We think that when students see these comedic skits that we have done, that they will remember Louisiana history in a way that they have not before.

I will tell you a funny story.

My daughter's in the eighth grade, and one day after filming, I said, How was school?

She said, We learned about LaSalle.

And I said, That's funny.

We were shooting recreations with LaSalle today, so I know for a fact that this is going to be well received in the schools.

Yeah.

Eighth grade Louisiana history.

Best subject ever.

So shout out to all eighth grade Louisiana history teachers out there.

Mine was amazing.

Made me start to love Louisiana history early in life and clearly still loving it.

So yeah, good deal.

So, Carol, you know, coming to you, even this is Destin, the work you've done here in Louisiana, your photographs are destined to be in the Library of Congress.

Tell us.

I mean, that's a big and I want everyone to know how big of a deal that is.

Well, I started in 1980 documenting America, and I've been here many, many, many times because.

We happen to love this state.

So my goal is to give 100,000 images to everybody in the world to see how great America is.

And it is.

Wow.

Mm hmm.

So I was so honored to have Linda and Jay say, how would you like to do this book?

Wow Now, never mind that it was 100 degrees many of the days it was I was with you on one of them.

And it was.

It was I feel as I was 120.

Eric, when you're having fun, you're eating everything in sight.

Oh, well, anyway, so this is a.

Very big deal.

For the Library of Congress, the largest library in the world, and the most historic photo collection.

So why not put this historic.

State.

In there?

It's been an honor and a treat we just have loved it to death.

I'll never forget it as long as I live.

I really won't.

And we won't forget you either.

So, Andy, I just want to remind everyone we've got our corporate challenge going on, and we also have the credit card challenge of when not a credit card challenge, but the credit card offer that's going on right now.

So I'll start with the corporate challenge Royal.

MARTIN And thanking thanks to Royal Martin for challenging all of our viewers who donate tonight.

And they will match dollar for dollar up to $3,000 on the contributions.

And this year in this program, only making your gift to help be twice as much.

And we appreciate that.

And then again, the $3,000 special credit card offer.

This is for a pledge of 3000 or more on your credit card.

You will receive the only in Louisiana VIP package, very special package.

It includes an overnight stay at the steel Magnolia house in Natchitoches, a private Atchafalaya swamp tour, and a gift certificate for a lazybones world famous for its meat pies along the Cajun food tour that includes five tasting stops for up to 14 people at locally owned Cajun restaurants around Lafayette.

And then you'll get all of the gifts from the show that we're watching right now so that everything that you can receive in speaking of those gifts, we will send them send you right back there so you can see what those gifts look like.

And give us your pledge of support.

The each seven, six, nine, 5000.

You're the gift.

When you become a member, you help LBB tell Louisiana story to thank you choose from these commemorative gifts, become a sustaining member at $35 a month and receive the Why Louisiana eight Mississippi combo that includes the signed hardcover coffee table book.

The limited edition signed photographic print collection by Carol Highsmith that includes Mike the Tiger Bit, Chief Mardi Gras Indian fireworks over Cane River, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Coastal Marsh and the Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi two DVD set, as well as the commemorative poster for $20 a month Receive the Why Louisiana eight Mississippi Photography Collection of five limited edition photographic prints signed by Carol Highsmith for $13 a month, receive the signed hardcover companion book signed by Jay Dardenne and Carol Highsmith, or for just $7 a month, receive the two DVD set of this documentary, plus Receive Visions LP these monthly program guide Louisiana Life Magazine and LP Passport.

The only place stream Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi or Any Place Else.

Carol, Those are some amazing gifts that you can receive.

And one of them talks about the photos, the special collection of five photos.

Tell us a bit more about that one.

I'm going to sign them, too.

Yes, Yes.

If you think about this, I showed up and showed up.

Mike the tiger.

That's right.

Oh, well, never mind.

Of course, we did have a little word in with the vet saying how a perfect image running wild and then all sorts of things.

So it was wonderful.

Then I did this amazing trip from New Orleans all way down to the marshes, 4 hours of aerials, the ships on the Mississippi River.

And everything.

Else you can imagine that's in there, the Cain River fireworks and Natchitoches.

That was fantastic.

We got all set up and everything went boom, almost like I was back in Washington, DC.

It's fabulous.

Absolutely.

They are you at a got a chance to take a look at them.

One by 14.

All.

Our viewers can purchase and have those framed any way they like.

And it's going to be really a very special collection, I should say.

And I will hand sign everything Eagle one lovingly, lovingly, lovingly original as they give me a little cup of gumbo to eat while I do it.

That's done.

Done.

We can maybe red beans and rice to that work.

Totally, totally done.

Jay I did want to come back and ask you about as you went around the state, what were some of your unexpected moments, unexpected things that you learned in doing this work?

Well, 4 hours is not enough to actually tell the complete story, but we do it pretty well, I think.

But, you know, this is really about Louisiana's culture as.

Well, as history in the mix, the importance of Catholicism, particularly in south Louisiana, the influence of the Mississippi River and how it it shaped America and Louisiana shaped because this is where people came to the new world, not through Ellis Island, but through the Port of New Orleans.

And that's a very big part of the story.

And, Linda, your on that.

I mean, there's so much.

Yeah, it's impossible to choose just one moment.

I mean, for me not being from here originally, it was all just an amazing learning experience.

Yeah.

Thank you, guys And thank you all for joining us for a while.

Louisiana and Mississippi or anyplace else.

While the French may have settled in Louisiana in waves from the early aristocrats to the Acadians to the islanders, Louisiana remains awash that heritage today.

Just take a look at the most common French surnames in Louisiana.

According to the Louisiana Atlas of Louisiana, surnames of French and Spanish origin.

Although the list has not been formally updated, I have informally reviewed phone books and voting records and believe it remains a fairly accurate ranking.

So here's the top ten.

Thibodaux coming in at number nine is Bro ESU, X or A.U., D Boudreaux, Rishard Fontana, Bro, Guidry.

Loblaw.

Broussard, Landry, and number one Aybar.

What I'm for in the study resolution, which.

Was the Aybar clan, was represented in the legislature in the 1980s by Representative Murry, a baker who was once accused of being two faced.

A colleague remembers a baker's response.

Two faced, two faced.

If I had to face as you think I'd be using this one.

Speaking of two faced, the greatest example of two faced consensus building actually comes from, well, Mississippi.

But the story is just too good not to tell.

In the 1950s, our neighboring state was dry.

It was illegal to sell alcohol.

There were some apparently ignoring the law and realizing significant revenue from the sale of whiskey.

Well, the legislature was called into session to determine once and for all whether whiskey be legalized.

Representative Noah Swett was one of the leaders of the legislature.

His nickname was Soggy.

That's right.

Soggy Sweat.

He was called upon to deliver an address at the opening of the session in order to provide the definitive answer as to whether or not whiskey should be legalized.

In so doing, he gave the greatest example I've ever seen of a politician being two faced in talking out of both sides of his mouth.

So, my friends, I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time.

However, I.

Want you to know that I do not shun controversy.

On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be.

You have asked me how I feel about whiskey.

All right.

Here is how I feel about whiskey.

If when you say whiskey, you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles the innocents, dethrone treason, destroys the family, literally takes bread from the mouths of little children.

If you mean that evil drink that topples a Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious, living into the bottomless pit of degradation and despair and shame and helplessness and hopelessness.

Then certainly I am against it.

But if when you say whiskey.

You mean the.

Oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the evil it is consumed when Goodfellas gathered together, puts the song in their heart and laughter on their lips, and the glow of contentment in their eyes.

If you mean Christmas cheer.

If you mean that drink.

That puts a spring in the.

Old gentleman step on a. Frosty, a crisp.

Morning.

If you mean that drink that enables a man to magnify his joy and happiness and forget, if only for a moment.

Laughs, heartaches and sorrows and tragedies.

If you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasury untold millions dollars to provide the tender care we need.

For.

Our little crippled children, a deaf.

Dumb and blind, our.

Pitiful aged and infirm to build highways.

Hospitals and schools.

Well, certainly I'm for it.

This is my story and I will not retreat.

I will not compromise.

Well, soggy Sweat certainly could have been elected in Louisiana with his ever so colorful reminder that there they're always sides to every story.

Hey, you know, we're different.

Hey, hey, hey.

Coming up tomorrow night, more flavors in the gumbo.

If you didn't know how to make meatballs by the time you were five years old, maybe you're not Italian.

A man stopped me, said your Jim before I left.

Yes.

Who is your distributor.

I said the Holy Spirit.

He said, The Holy Father.

And the pot really begins to boil.

Do you remember when you were given the name the soul Queen of New Orleans?

Jay, pick it up.

But don't tell.

Kosher.

Rabbi, Louisiana is excited that you're back.

This is the only place where people at the airport will gather around the TV to watch a college baseball game.

It feels to me like people should know more about your contribution to Louisiana history.

I'm kind of a big deal.

Louisiana's disproportionate impact on music and sports and the arts for our size and for our population.

The impact Louisiana made on the world is unparalleled.

How'd we do?

Where do you get down the fiddle and you get down the bow, kick off your shoes and you throw them on the floor.

Dance in the kitchen till the morning light.

Louisiana Saturday night.

Waiting in a.

Front yard, sitting on a log, a single shot Raveling.

The one eye down.

Yanukovych invoking the moonlight.

Louisiana Saturday night.

Where do you get down the middle and you get down the boat, kick off the shoes and you boom in the flow.

Dance in the kitchen till the morning light.

Louisiana Saturday night and pick.

Up your shoes and get home on the floor.

Dance in the kitchen till the morning light.

Louisiana Saturday.

Night you get down the middle and you get down the boat, kick.

Off your shoes and you throw them on the floor.

Dance in the kitchen till.

The morning light.

Louisiana Saturday night and.

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