New Orleans trumpeter and vocalist Kermit Ruffins is throwing a benefit show on Tuesday, Dec. 2, for the First and Last Stop, one of the city’s oldest Black-owned neighborhood bars which is now being evicted by its building’s white landlord.
Ruffins and his band The BBQ Swingers will play around 4:30 p.m. at the First and Last Stop on Pauger Street. “It’s going to be a big jam session,” Ruffins said on Instagram. A Mardi Gras Indian practice also will happen after the music wraps up around 6 p.m. The musicians will be collecting money for the bar and its owner, Carolyn Cushenberry.
The First and Last Stop has operated under Black ownership for the last 75 years, and the bar has been a neighborhood staple in the 7th Ward and a gathering place for Black Masking Indians to practice and dress on Mardi Gras day. And as Black-owned bars have been disappearing due to gentrification, the First and Last Stop has held on at the corner of Pauger and Marais.
But as first reported by The Lens, the building’s new owner, Daniel Sellers, posted a hand-typed eviction notice to the bar’s door on Nov. 1 giving Cushenberry just 10 days to vacate. Sellers also cut off the bar’s lights and put a chain on the door.
Cushenberry also told The Lens that Sellers had twice called her a “n**** bitch” when she had arrived to the building. Sellers has denied the allegation of using the n-word. Police were eventually called to the bar and ordered Sellers to go to civil court if he wanted to evict Cushenberry and her business. In the weeks following their confrontation outside of the bar, though, The Lens reports Sellers has continued to show up to the building and has sent taunting text messages to Cushenberry.
Ruffins, who owns the Treme Mother-in-Law Lounge, initially had planned to take over the space, but after learning about Cushenberry’s eviction, he instead planned to pay off any back rent on the bar for her and hold a benefit concert to keep Cushenberry and the First and Last Stop where they are.
First and Last Stop is one of New Orleans’ oldest Black-owned neighborhood bars.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nola.com ’
