Remembering Reggie
Reggie Adams 32 people died when an arsonist set fire to New Orleans’ Up Stairs Lounge, 49 years ago this month. Dallas native Reggie Adams was one of them FRANK PEREZ | Special Contributor Reggie was a young Black man from Dallas studying to become a Jesuit priest.
Ricky was a young white Mormon from New Orleans preparing to go on a mission trip to China. Their divine callings would be radically altered when they met each other one night at a neighborhood gay bar on the edge of the French Quarter in New Orleans.
There, they found a calling in each other. You might even call it destiny. But it was a destiny that would take a tragic turn neither one could see coming.
Reginald Eugene Adams was born on May 31, 1949, in Dallas, and grew up near the projects here. Gifted intellectually and musically, Reggie, as he was called, won a scholarship to Jesuit High School.
