page_title: Rodolphe Desdunes
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Rodolphe Desdunes / Life
caption_attribution_description: New Orleans 1874, during post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Clash between the (racially integrated) Police and the (segregationist) White League on Canal Street
context_page_description: Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes was a civil rights activist, poet, historian, journalist, and customs officer primarily active in New Orleans, Louisiana. Later in life he moved to Omaha, Nebraska, where his son Daniel had settled.
  In Louisiana he served as a militiaman during the Reconstruction era and was involved in the Battle of Liberty Place. Later, he was a member of L'Union Louisianais and wrote for the weekly of the same name. He also wrote for the daily paper, the Crusader, and taught at the Couvent School in New Orleans.
  In 1890, he was among the founders of the Comité des Citoyens, which fought the 1890 Separate Car Act through legal challenges, leading to the US Supreme Court Case, Plessy vs Ferguson. It rejected their challenge, ruling that "separate but equal" accommodations in public facilities were constitutional. He also wrote an important French-language history of Creoles in America called Nos Hommes et Notre Histoire, the first such book written in French by a member of the Louisiana Creoles of Color.
context_section_description: Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes was born November 15, 1849 as one of at least five children of Pierre Jérémie Desdunes and Henriette Angélique (Sonty) Gaillard; siblings were Pierre Aristide, Joseph, Elmore, and Sarazin. 
  Their father, Pierre, lived in New Orleans at least as early as 1840 and was probably born in the city. The Desdunes family had come from Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), and likely fled to New Orleans during the 1791 Haitian Revolution. They were free people of color. Rodolphe's education was likely provided by family and family friends Armand Lanusse and Joanni Questy, as well as at the Couvent School.
  Rodolphe's brother Pierre Aristide also became involved in civil rights as an adult. By profession he was a poet, a cigar maker, a carpenter, and owner of a tobacco plantation. He fought in the American Civil War. He served on the board of directors of the Couvent School, which had been created by Marie Couvent in 1848. In 1873 Aristide married Louise Mathilde Denebourg. 
  Rodolphe married Mathilde Cheval, and they lived for some time with her mother, also named Mathilde. Before 1880, they had children Daniel (born in about 1873), Agnes (about 1873), Louise (about 1874), Coritza (born in 1876), and Wendelle (born winter 1876-1877). The Chevals may have descended from early Cheval settlers of the Tremé district, Pierre and Léandre. 
  In 1879, Rodolphe started a relationship with Clementine Walker, born in 1860 and a daughter of John and Ophelia Walker. Rodolphe and Clementine had at least four children, Mary Celine (March 25, 1879), John Alexander (1881), Louise (1889), and Oscar Alphonse (1892). Clementine died September 23, 1893. Mary Celine later became known as Mamie Desdunes and was a blues pianist. Clementine lived near Jelly Roll Morton's godmother, and Jérémie and Henriette Desdunes were neighbors of Morton's mother. From this proximity, Morton learned the song he recorded as "Mamie's Blues" or "2:19 Blues" and attributed to Mamie, singing, "Can’t give a dollar, give a lousy dime,/ I wanna feed that hungry man of mine." Other associates of Mamie included performer Bunk Johnson and promoters Hattie Rogers and Lulu White. Mamie married George Degay in 1898, and died of tuberculosis December 4, 1911. 
  Oscar was also a musician. After his nephew Clarence's death in 1933, Oscar played with his band, the Joyland Revellers. 
  Rodolphe had three other daughters, possibly by Clementine, named Edna, Lucille, and Jeanne (born about 1893).
caption: The "Louisiana Outrages", as illustrated in Harper's Weekly, 1874. Clash between the (racially integrated) Police and the (segregationist) White League on Canal Street
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