Vernel Bagneris

Vernel Martin Bagneris (born July 31, 1949) is an American playwright, actor, director, singer, and dancer. He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Vernel Bagneris was the third child of Gloria Diaz Bagneris and Lawrence Bagneris, Sr. Bagneris’s mother was a housewife and a deeply religious woman who “quietly outclassed most people,” and his father was a playful, creative man, a World War II veteran, and lifelong postal clerk. Bagneris grew up in the tightly knit, predominantly Creole Seventh Ward to a family of free people of color that had been in New Orleans since 1750. From the age of six, he had a knack for winning popular dance contests, and during christenings and jazz funerals, he learned more traditional music and dance.

By the mid-1960s the once-beautiful, tree-lined neighborhood in which he was raised fell victim to the U.S. government’s program of urban renewal, known colloquially in the area as “Negro removal.” A freeway overpass was constructed over a thriving neighborhood, inviting crime and eventually shuttering businesses and changing the community. Trees were uprooted, homes were razed, the promenade was destroyed, and a neighborhood diaspora was in effect. Bagneris described it this way: “Imagine the Champs Elysées minus all trees, with a brooding highway held up by concrete poles and bare, unplanted dirt as its walkways.” The Bagneris family ultimately moved to Gentilly, along with many other residents of the Seventh Ward.

Bagneris was in the advanced placement track at St. Augustine High School, an institution committed to instilling dignity and respect in its young men, despite the segregation in nearly every aspect of their lives in New Orleans. At fifteen, he and his compatriots were encouraged by the school leaders to quietly protest segregation at bowling alleys and drugstore counters citywide. Bagneris graduated in 1967, when overt instances of Jim Crow had diminished but seating was still segregated on public transportation, in restaurants and restrooms, and at water fountains. In the fall of 1967 he headed directly to a seminary to study for the priesthood where he stayed for three long days. “I didn’t go there to meditate,” said Bagneris. “I went to be of service. That was the confusion.”

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