Vintage postcards (1940s and earlier) appear above modern-day photographs of the same spot, with brief text providing historical information about each location. Street scenes, restaurants, parks, and cemeteries are all covered. Samples include the Peristyle in City Park, St. Roch's cemetery and shrine, Mme. Begué's restaurant, the Saenger Theatre, the St. Charles Hotel, and Chartres Street in the French Quarter.
Harold Weisberg was foremost among the early trailblazers who saw the inadequacy of the Warren Report’s solution to the crime of the century. He tirelessly petitioned the government and used the courts to force release of withheld documents, and wrote dozens of books and manuscripts on the subject. Oswald in New Orleans focuses on the strange 1963 summer during which Lee Harvey Oswald was in New Orleans, where his apparent “lone nut” pro-Castro activities have puzzled researchers for many years. This book discusses the many odd stories and colorful personalities of the Oswald–New Orleans scene: Dean Andrews, David Ferrie, Sylvia Odio, Orest Pena, Carlos Bringuier, Loran Hall, and others. Published in the early days of the ill-fated Garrison investigation, this book remains an important analysis of those stories and persons. Taken in the context of Weisberg’s numerous books on the subject, Oswald’s time in New Orleans brings clarity to the events that would follow. Originally published in 1967, Oswald in New Orleans is no less the startling and shocking narrative today than it was when first released, and the painstakingly thorough investigative research and analysis that Weisberg has conducted makes his work essential to understanding the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
This book includes the Commission's report, which was based on the investigation, as well as all the supporting documents collected during the investigation, and the testimony or depositions of 552 witnesses. The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson through Executive Order 11130 on November 29, 1963 to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy that had taken place on November 22, 1963.
Warren Commission Report is the result of the investigation regarding the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy. The U.S. Congress passed Senate Joint Resolution 137 authorizing the Presidential appointed Commission to report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, mandating the attendance and testimony of witnesses and the production of evidence. After eleven months of the investigation the Commission presented its findings in 888-page final report. The key findings presented in this report were that President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, that Oswald acted entirely alone and that Jack Ruby also acted alone when he killed Oswald two days later. The Commission's findings have proven controversial and have been both challenged and supported by later studies.
Warren Commission Report is the result of the investigation regarding the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy. The U.S. Congress passed Senate Joint Resolution 137 authorizing the Presidential appointed Commission to report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, mandating the attendance and testimony of witnesses and the production of evidence. After eleven months of the investigation the Commission presented its findings in 888-page final report. The key findings presented in this report were that President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, that Oswald acted entirely alone and that Jack Ruby also acted alone when he killed Oswald two days later. The Commission's findings have proven controversial and have been both challenged and supported by later studies.
In May, 1921, Joseph Rini and five other men of Italian descent drove from New Orleans to Independence, Louisiana, in a stolen car to attempt the late-night robbery of an Independence bank. During the confused events of that night, a local businessman was shot by an unknown assailant, and the six men were shortly thereafter captured and charged with murder, largely on the basis of circumstantial evidence. They were found guilty. When this verdict was appealed and the state supreme court reversed it on a technicality, a second trial in May, 1922, ended with an identical decision and sentence. A series of fruitless appeals followed, and on May 9, 1924, the prisoners were hanged in Amite City—the nation’s only execution of six men for the murder of one. Using court transcripts, newspaper accounts, and interviews, John Baiamonte recounts the dramatic and often moving story of these six men and their trial, which in its day was to become a national and international cause célèbre. He explores the social prejudices of the day, particularly the popular assumption that any criminal activity involving Italians was part of a plot by the Mafia. Fear of Italian gangsters, especially from a tightly organized Mafia, had been rampant in southern Louisiana since the 1890s, as was prejudice against the hardworking law-abiding Sicilian immigrants who had settled in large numbers in Tangipahoa Parish, where these events took place. “Bloody Tangipahoa” had long been notorious for violence, particularly against minorities. Moreover, the parish judicial system at that time, the trial judge, and the state Board of Pardons, which reviewed the Italians’ appeal, were thought to be involved with the Ku Klux Klan. Even the governor, John M. Parker, was one of the leaders of a mob that murdered eleven Italians suspected of Mafia affiliation in New Orleans in 1891. Baiamonte also examines the mood of the courtroom, the pressures put upon the lawyers, the jury, and the witnesses to convict the six—despite the fact that the prosecution’s only witness to the shooting failed to identify any of the defendants and no witness could place the defendants closer than three miles from Independence on the night of the murder. Everyone became a participant in the courtroom, even the spectators. They applauded when new evidence against the defendants was introduced. In cameos of each of the convicted men, Baiamonte describes moods and actions. Joseph Bocchio, one of the condemned, read Shakespeare and wrote poems, which were published in the local paper. Spirit of Vengeance affords an intriguing view of a tumultuous period in Louisiana history, and the six men whose vain struggle to survive brought them international attention.
