A former Episcopal church in Donaldsonville, inbuilt 1873 on land donated by a slave proprietor and Louisiana governor, is now house to a brand new, everlasting exhibit that pays tribute to enslaved individuals who labored Louisiana’s sugarcane fields
It’ll open on the weekend of Juneteenth, the celebration of the tip of slavery within the U.S.
“It’s devoted to the enslaved individuals who had been introduced right here and their descendants,” stated Kathe Hambrick, curator of the exhibit.
Hambrick can also be the founding father of the River Street African American Museum in Donaldsonville; the previous Episcopal church on Nicholls Avenue is now a campus of the museum.
The title of the exhibit is “GU272 and Ascension Parish: The Jesuit and Episcopal Connection to Slavery.” That references 272 enslaved individuals who Georgetown College’s Jesuit founders offered to 2 Louisiana sugarcane planters in 1838 to repay the college’s money owed.
The Jesuit order formally apologized in 2017 to the descendants of the enslaved.
One of many planters was Henry Johnson, who was Louisiana governor from 1824 to 1828. Johnson co-founded the Episcopal Church of Ascension in Donaldsonville and donated the property the place the church was constructed.
It is that connection that impressed Hambrick to decide on the church as the location of the exhibit.
A proper opening is scheduled for June 18, with a reception starting at 10 a.m., adopted by a program at midday. Viewing of the exhibit, which incorporates everlasting panels of knowledge and digital hyperlinks to data from the Georgetown Slavery Archives, will observe till 2 p.m.
Sooner or later, the exhibit might be out there to see by appointment, by calling the River Street African American Museum at (225) 474-5553.
Hambrick stated the Georgetown archives embrace loads of details about the 272 enslaved individuals, however native residents would not essentially know the place to search out it.
“I assumed, ‘We’re going to make an exhibit’” she stated.
Artist Malaika Favourite created artwork for the home windows of a former Episcopal church in Donaldsonville that’s now a campus of the River Street African American Museum. The artwork challenge is for the brand new everlasting exhibit, “The Jesuit and Episcopal Connection to Slavery.”
The challenge is funded by a grant from American Slavery’s Legacy Throughout House and Time, a challenge of the nonprofit Social Science Analysis Council. It additionally acquired a grant from the New Orleans Jazz Nationwide Historic Park of the Nationwide Park Service.
The previous church that’s house to the exhibit was offered a number of years in the past after it was decommissioned by the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana attributable to lack of members.
The constructing, which nonetheless has its unique pews and pulpit, was bought in 2017 by historic preservationist Darryl Gissel, a former chairman of the board of the River Street African American Museum.
“We had nice concern that any individual would try to buy it and transfer it. It wanted to be preserved,” stated Gissel, who’s the chief administrative officer for Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome.
Historian and genealogist Karran Royal of New Orleans was the historian for the brand new exhibit. She and others based the GU272 Descendants Affiliation, and Royal served for a number of years as its government director.
For the brand new everlasting exhibit in Donaldsonville, Royal stated she “went extra deeply into household strains in Ascension Parish.”
Artist Malaika Favourite created artwork for the home windows of a former Episcopal church in Donaldsonville that’s now a campus of the River Street African American Museum. The artwork challenge is for the brand new everlasting exhibit, “The Jesuit and Episcopal Connection to Slavery.”
“Engaged on the challenge helped me uncover so many particulars about these households,” she stated.
Royal discovered, for instance, that the descendants of Henrietta Hill, a girl offered by the Jesuits and dropped at Louisiana, embrace a founding dean of Southern College, a president of Grambling College and a Reconstruction-Period sheriff.
There’s additionally an artwork element to the brand new “Jesuit and Episcopal Connection to Slavery” exhibit.
Earlier than the outdated church constructing in Donaldsonville was offered, its unique stained glass home windows had been eliminated and changed with frosted glass.
However the sensible colours are returning.
Louisiana artist Malaika Favourite, who’s the resident artist of the River Street African American Museum, was commissioned to create artwork that has been printed onto acrylic panels and set into the frosted-glass home windows, creating a stupendous stained-glass impact.
“They’re devoted to the enslaved,” Hambrick stated.