Sharing an 'Untold Story': Exploring rich history of overlooked New Orleans neighborhood

Contra Costa Times (MCT) - A few years ago, Bay Area filmmaker Dawn Logsdon learned a valuable double-barreled lesson: (1) Sometimes the best ideas for a documentary project can be found right in your former backyard, and (2) Never overlook the teachings of a parent.

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The result of that knowledge is "Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans," a moving and revelatory film making its television debut on PBS as part of the system's extensive programming lineup for Black History Month.

Lying at the edge of New Orleans' fabled French Quarter, Faubourg Treme is considered the oldest black neighborhood in America. Not a lot of people know that the Southern civil rights movement originated there and that jazz was born there.

Logsdon, 47, didn't know it either, even though she was born in New Orleans, went to high school there and had a father who taught history at the University of New Orleans.

It wasn't until after Joseph Logsdon died in 1999 that his daughter began delving into the books he had written and learning extensively about the incredibly rich past of Treme. Known mainly for her editing work on acclaimed documentaries such as "The Weather Underground" and "The Castro: Hidden Neighborhoods of San Francisco," she chose the district as the subject for her feature-length directorial debut.

"I was gaining a new appreciation for my hometown around that time, and for me to know that the city I grew up in was at the forefront of the civil rights movement was really special," says Logsdon, who majored in philosophy at Cal and lives in Berkeley.

About five years before Hurricane Katrina ravaged parts of Treme, Logsdon returned to her hometown to begin telling the story of the unique district. Joining her as the writer on the project was Lolis Eric Elie, a New Orleans newspaperman and lifelong friend. Musician Wynton Marsalis was enlisted as an executive producer and Bay Area resident Lucie Faulknor served as a producer.

The film introduces viewers to a neighborhood that, in the early 1800s, was home to free black residents who were publishing poetry and newspapers and conducting symphonies. This was at a time when most blacks in the South were toiling as slaves on plantations. This was also more than a century before the Harlem Renaissance.

Treme was a trendsetter in other ways. Long before Rosa Parks performed her landmark act of defiance on a Montgomery, Ala., bus, neighborhood leaders organized sit-ins and protests that successfully desegregated the city's streetcars and schools.

"When most people think of New Orleans, they don't think of the civil rights movement," Logsdon says. "It's pretty much known as a party city. It's all about the music, the food and having a good time. "It's not Selma. It's not Birmingham."

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In the film, Elie leads an intimate tour of Treme, highlighting not only its historic relevance and expressive residents, but its slide into inner-city decay during the 1960s. In the years before Katrina unleashed its wrath, Treme _ or the Sixth Ward, as it came to be known _ was experiencing a new sense of vibrancy as artists, musicians and writers were relocating there.

When disaster struck in 2005, Logsdon's film was basically complete and she debated whether to return to New Orleans to shoot updated sequences. Executive producer Stanley Nelson urged her to go as soon as possible.

"By the time we got there, the entire city had been evacuated. It was really quiet and really, really creepy," Logsdon recalls.

And heart-wrenching, as well. At one point during the visit, Logsdon and her camera crew ventured into a flooded home with the owner, and it was "like seeing an entire lifetime just completely wiped out."

But Katrina also dramatically altered the way fund-donors regarded her film. In the years before the storm, Logsdon and her collaborators struggled to scrape up enough money for the production. After the storm, it wasn't a problem.

"Beforehand, we were told by everyone that it wasn't a national story _ just a local one," she says. "But then Katrina hit and all eyes were on New Orleans."

And now the "Untold Story" is being told. Logsdon's film has already garnered several honors on the festival circuit, including the best documentary award at the San Francisco International Film Festival and the San Francisco Black Film Festival. Also, interest in Treme is apparently building. Television writer-producer David Simon ("The Wire") is shooting a drama series pilot for HBO that is set there.

Says Logsdon, "After Katrina, a lot of people talked about the resilient spirit of the people of New Orleans _ how they persisted and endured. To me, this neighborhood is the embodiment of that."

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TV DOCUMENTARY

WHAT: "Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans"

WHEN: Check local listings, PBS

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© 2009, Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.).