About Mark Charles Roudane
Mark Charles Roudané is the author of “The New Orleans Tribune: An Introduction to America’s First Black Daily Newspaper.” He is currently writing a full-length book on the Tribune. He hopes this inspirational and underrepresented history will inspire wider audiences and foster greater appreciation for one of America’s most significant civil rights movements.
Mr. Roudané was born in New Orleans and currently resides in St. Paul, Minnesota. An educator, author, and public speaker, Mr. Roudané’s recent release, The New Orleans Tribune, An Introduction to America’s First Black Daily Newspaper, has sold over 800 copies. His articles have appeared in the South Atlantic Review and the Journal of the Louisiana Creole Research Association. Mr. Roudané was featured as the keynote speaker at the 150th Anniversary of the Tribune at Dillard University and recently presented lectures on Tribune history at Savannah State University and at the Louisiana Public History Forum. Mark is the great, great grandson of Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez.
Introducing himself genealogically, Mr. Roudané explains: “My roots are in Africa, France, Haiti, and Louisiana. My 4th great paternal and maternal grandmothers were enslaved in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). Both had children with French colonists. Their descendants lived as free people of color in Louisiana, including Jean Baptiste Roudanez, the publisher of the New Orleans Tribune, and Louis Charles Roudanez, the newspaper’s founder and my great, great grandfather. My father, also named Louis Charles Roudanez, was the first to be listed as white on his birth certificate. My paternal ancestry was hidden from me, and I did not discover my Afro-Creole roots until after his death. Inspired by my heritage, I have spent the last several years passionately reading and researching the South’s first Black newspaper, L’Union, and America’s first Black daily newspaper, the New Orleans Tribune.”
