THE RECKONING OF ROBERT CHARLES

At the turn of the twentieth century, New Orleans was a city built on spectacle, order, and silence. But when Robert Charles, a Black man living under the weight of racialized policing, refuses to submit to an unlawful encounter on Dryades Street, the city’s carefully maintained order begins to unravel. What follows is a relentless manhunt fueled by sensational headlines, deputized civilians, and institutional fear. As law enforcement dissolves into mob violence, Robert Charles is transformed from a man into a symbol—one the city believes must be destroyed to restore control. Black neighborhoods are placed under siege, truth is rewritten in ink, and violence is justified in the name of “peace.” The Reckoning of Robert Charles is a work of historical fiction inspired by the real events of the 1900 New Orleans race riot. Told in an authentic Southern voice, the novel restores humanity to a figure long reduced to a footnote and examines how power, fear, and memory shape the stories societies choose to preserve. This is not a tale of easy heroes or simple villains. It is a reckoning of a city, a system, and the cost of refusing erasure.