“he walked the endless Negro blocks to home because it was still day. He was suspicious of them by night or by day. What were they forever laughing about from doorstep to door that he could never clearly hear—Their voices dropped when he came near and didn’t rise till he was past earshot. Yet their prophecies pursued him—

De Lord Give Noah de rainbow sign—

Wont be by water but by fire next time”

—Nelson Algren, from A Walk on the Wild Side, 1956. As quoted in Sustaining New Orleans: Literature, Local Memory, and the Fate of a City by Barbara Eckstein, 2006.