Event First Free Sundays

Join us for free admission on the first Sunday of each month! Tours and special programs of traditional crafts, and family activities will be offered. Check out the details below for dates with special guest speakers.

Aug. 4 + Sept. 1 + Oct. 6 + Nov. 3 + Dec. 1 / 1-4 p.m. 

September 1, 2024

 Guest Speaker: Dr. Petra Mundro Hendry

"Reimagining Louisiana: The Afro-Franco-Creole Protest Tradition and Education, 1685-1896"

After the Civil War, Louisiana ratified the most progressive state constitution in the South, one which forbade segregation in public schools. The school integration and public accommodation provisions of the 1868 constitution were a century ahead of their times. This presentation will trace the origins of this radical egalitarian vision by examining the long history of education in Louisiana from a transatlantic perspective. Louisiana is situated at the crossroads of the transatlantic. The creolization of Indigenous, African, European, and Caribbean cultures resulted in an Afro-Franco-Creole protest tradition that saw "public" education as critical to human equality.  While most histories of education of the South, and particularly Louisiana, begin after the Civil War, this presentation traces the “long” history of education beginning with the Jesuits and Ursulines educational mission in New France among both Indigenous and African peoples, the impact of the Haitian Revolution on education in New Orleans, the emergence of Afro-Catholic education through the Sisters of the Holy Family and Catholic Institute for Indigent Orphans, and the battle for public integrated education after the Civil War as advocated by the The Tribune, the first daily African American newspaper in the United States.