From Behind the Screen

The native creole culture of New Orleans and Louisiana is unique. Developing over several hundred years, it is a "gumbo" of former slaves, free people of color, American Indians and Europeans – all in just about any combination you can imagine. In New Orleans, regardless of the mixture, they were considered "colored." Even in the Catholic churches that allowed both races to pray, parishioners expected that they would sit in separate pews. Then there was the "screen," New Orleans' name for the ga