Enfilade

Woodland Plantation House, LaPlace, Louisiana, the oldest portions of which date to 1793. The Descendants Project purchased the house and four acres of land in January 2024 for $750,000. More information is available here»

◊    ◊    ◊    ◊    ◊

From National Public Radio:

Debbie Elliott, “Louisiana Plantation Where Historic Slave Revolt Started Now under Black Ownership,” NPR Morning Edition (9 July 2024).

Jo Banner is excited to show the newly acquired Woodland Plantation House near the banks of the Mississippi River.

“We have still a lot of work to do, but I think for the home to be from 1793, it looks rather good,” she beams.

The raised creole-style building has a rusty tin roof and a wide front porch. Forest green wooden shutters cover the windows and doors. The site is historically significant because this is where one of the largest slave revolts in U.S. history began. It’s also known as the German Coast Uprising because this region was settled by German immigrants.

“The start of the 1811 revolt happened here, on this porch,” Banner says.

Banner and her twin sister Joy are co-founders of the Descendants Project, a non-profit in Louisiana’s heavily industrialized river parishes—just west of New Orleans. Early this year, the group bought the Woodland Plantation Home, putting it in Black ownership for the first time [in its over 200-year history] . . .

“Our mission is to eradicate the legacies of slavery so for us, it’s the intersection of historic preservation, the preservation of our communities, which are also historic, and our fight for environmental justice,” says Joy Banner.

The full report is available here»

More information on the house is available at the Society of Architectural Historians’ Archipedia site»

◊    ◊    ◊    ◊    ◊

About The Descendants Project:

The Descendants Project is an emerging organization committed to the intergenerational healing and flourishing of the Black descendant community in the Louisiana river parishes. The lands of the river parishes hold the intersecting histories of enslavement, settler colonialism, and environmental degradation.
​
We are descended from the enslaved men, women, and children who were forced to labor at one or more of the hundreds of plantations that line the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. Starting in the 1970s, large industrial petrochemical plants began purchasing the land of these plantations still surrounded by vulnerable Black descendant communities. The region is now known as ‘Cancer Alley’ for the extreme risks of cancer and death due to pollution. The community faces many other problems such as food insecurity, high unemployment, high poverty, land dispossession, and health issues that stem from a culture of disregard for Black communities and their quality of life.
​​
Through programming, education, advocacy, and outreach, The Descendants Project is committed to reversing the vagrancies of slavery through healing and restorative work. We aim to eliminate the narrative violence of plantation tourism and champion the voice of the Black descendant community while demanding action that supports the total well-being of Black descendants.