Ernest J. Gaines was born on January 15, 1933 on River Lake Plantation near Oscar, Louisiana, in Point Coupee Parish. His parents, Manuel and Adrienne worked as sharecroppers on the same plantation their ancestors had labored as slaves. Ernest was the oldest of seven children … Read More … Read MoreErnest James Gaines (1933-2019)
Jewel Limar Prestage was the first African-American woman to earn a PhD in political science at an American university. Prestage was born on August 12, 1931, in Hutton, Louisiana, to Brudis Leroy Limar Sr. and Sallie Bell Johnson Limar. At a young age, her family … Read More … Read MoreJewel Limar Prestage (1931-2014)
The Louisiana State Penitentiary nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the South” is the largest maximum security prison in the country. Six thousand, three hundred men, 80 per cent of whom are black are held there. Before the Civil War, the prison property was known as the Angola … Read More … Read MoreLouisiana State Prison, Angola (1880- )
Grambling State University was founded in 1901 in Grambling, Louisiana. In the post- Civil War effort to build schools for former African American slaves, several colleges were established in Louisiana. All of them were concentrated in the more populous southern portion of the state including … Read More … Read MoreGrambling State University (1901- )
St. Augustine Catholic Church of New Orleans was the first black church in Louisiana and the first black Catholic church in the United States. In the 1830s a group of free African-American New Orleanians began organizing to create a Catholic church in Tremé, a historically … Read More … Read MoreSt. Augustine Catholic Church, New Orleans, Louisiana (1841- )
The blues guitarist George “Buddy” Guy was born on July 30, 1936 and reared on a farm without modern conveniences near Lettsworth, Louisiana, to Sam Guy and Isabel Williams Guy, sharecroppers. There were five children, one of which was his fellow bluesman Phil Guy. Buddy … Read More … Read MoreBuddy Guy (1936- )
When residents of St. Gabriel, Louisiana took note of the large number of fellow community members being diagnosed with cancer along Jacobs Drive, the community nicknamed the street “Cancer Alley.” As the number of cancer cases steadily grew within their community and across the state, … Read More … Read More1) Cancer Alley, Louisiana (1987- )
William J. Jefferson is a former Democratic politician who represented Louisiana’s Second Congressional District from 1991 to 2009. He was the first African American congressman elected from the state since Reconstruction. His career ended in a bribery scandal that resulted in his conviction in November … Read More … Read MoreWilliam J. Jefferson (1947- )
Republican Charles Edmund Nash served in the 44th Congress as Louisiana’s only black representative. Nash was born in Opelousas, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, on May 23, 1844. Before his time in Congress, Nash attended common schools, was a bricklayer in New Orleans, and had enlisted … Read More … Read MoreCharles Edmund Nash (1844-1913)
Southern University and Agricultural & Mechanical College, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is the largest historically Black college in the state of Louisiana. In 1970, over 10,000 Black students attended the university. Although the school president and most of the administration were Black, the university itself … Read More … Read MoreThe 1972 Southern University Shooting
