Lecture
John McCusker
"Benevolent Societies and the Dew Drop"
A Look at the Context and Communities that Founded Mutual Aid Societies after the Abandonment of Reconstruction

Tennille Parris
"History of the Dew Drop"

John McCusker has been a photojournalist in New Orleans since 1983, working at the Times-Picayune and the New Orleans Advocate. McCusker was part of the team awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of Hurricane Katrina. He is the author of “Creole Trombone: Kid Ory and the Early Years of Jazz” (2012) and co-author of “Jockomo: The Native Roots of Mardi Gras Indians,” (2019) both published by the University Press of Mississippi. McCusker founded the Cradle of Jazz Tour in 1994 with a goal of protecting and marking structures associated with the birth of jazz in New Orleans.  In 2019, John founded the 1811 Kid Ory Historic House, a museum telling the story of the 1811 slave rebellion and the early life of jazz pioneer Kid Ory.