Last updated: September 26, 2023
Article
Podcast 138: Preserving History in Maison Creole de Freetown in Lafayette, Louisiana
The Need for a Cultural Center
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: Hi, this is Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst, and I'm here today with:
Erica Fox: Erica Melancon Fox, I'm the executive director of Maison Creole de Freetown in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: Thank you, Erica. Can you give us some background information on how the Maison Freetown Community Center came to be?
Erica Fox: Mason Creole de Freetown was a vision of mine for probably close to 12 years now, but it just recently manifested within the last year and a half. I always saw a need for a Cultural Center and representation, especially for African Americans, in Lafayette. It was birthed out of a vision for seeing an African American Heritage Center in Lafayette.
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: I know the location of Maison Freetown de Creole is very significant. Could you tell us a little bit about why the location is important and what it means for the community surrounding it?
Erica Fox: Well, first of all, having had family that grew up in the area, I'd learned about Freetown through my family members, and was always enamored by the stories that they told of community. As I started to research more about Freetown, because it was something I had to learn as well, I learned that this was just an impactful community of African Americans and has been so for over 100 years. So, it seems like a great starting place to tell the story of black people in Lafayette.
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: What about the role that the Freetown neighborhood played in the civil rights movement and a sense of community?
Erica Fox: So, the organization that we established, True Friends Society of Lafayette, is actually the grandchild, if you will, of an actual existing benevolence social group called True Friends Society that was established in the late 1800s in Freetown. This group was very important to other newly emancipated African Americans because they helped, one, in the uprisings and thwarting massacres, they helped keep people safe. They were true friends to each other. So, during a time when there was an ugly time in our history of the city, they helped to keep their African American brethren safe. They also provided insurance policies and burial policies for people of color. They did fish fries if someone was late on rent or needed help with making payments for bills. So, this organization was always there for each other and we continue that legacy one by reestablishing the organization, naming ourselves that and maintaining the Center.
Erica Fox: Erica Melancon Fox, I'm the executive director of Maison Creole de Freetown in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: Thank you, Erica. Can you give us some background information on how the Maison Freetown Community Center came to be?
Erica Fox: Mason Creole de Freetown was a vision of mine for probably close to 12 years now, but it just recently manifested within the last year and a half. I always saw a need for a Cultural Center and representation, especially for African Americans, in Lafayette. It was birthed out of a vision for seeing an African American Heritage Center in Lafayette.
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: I know the location of Maison Freetown de Creole is very significant. Could you tell us a little bit about why the location is important and what it means for the community surrounding it?
Erica Fox: Well, first of all, having had family that grew up in the area, I'd learned about Freetown through my family members, and was always enamored by the stories that they told of community. As I started to research more about Freetown, because it was something I had to learn as well, I learned that this was just an impactful community of African Americans and has been so for over 100 years. So, it seems like a great starting place to tell the story of black people in Lafayette.
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: What about the role that the Freetown neighborhood played in the civil rights movement and a sense of community?
Erica Fox: So, the organization that we established, True Friends Society of Lafayette, is actually the grandchild, if you will, of an actual existing benevolence social group called True Friends Society that was established in the late 1800s in Freetown. This group was very important to other newly emancipated African Americans because they helped, one, in the uprisings and thwarting massacres, they helped keep people safe. They were true friends to each other. So, during a time when there was an ugly time in our history of the city, they helped to keep their African American brethren safe. They also provided insurance policies and burial policies for people of color. They did fish fries if someone was late on rent or needed help with making payments for bills. So, this organization was always there for each other and we continue that legacy one by reestablishing the organization, naming ourselves that and maintaining the Center.
A Number of Projects and Initiatives
Image courtesy of Erica Fox
Erica Fox: Absolutely. We have right now through the Equal Justice Initiative and Move the Mindset, which is a civil rights organization here in Lafayette, two displays. They are soil remembrance reminders of some places where African Americans were actually lynched in Lafayette Parish on display. That was one of the missions of True Friends Society, was to try to keep those occurrences from happening, but unfortunately, they still did in this area. So, we do have a display right now that is just a remembrance of that time so that we don't repeat those situations.
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: What other sorts of things are happening in Maison Freetown de Creole that promote the initiative of the Center?
Erica Fox: Well, we just got off Mardi Gras, or Mardi Gras just ended, and the historical Mardi Gras association was first established here. For the last 65 years it’s been in existence. And so, we currently have some of the Mardi Gras Black Mascara regalia here. So, people that attend can see the craftsmanship of Mardi Gras costuming here in the Center. It also ties back to the history that the Mardi Gras Black Association actually started here in Freetown as well.
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: What are some things we can learn about through your Center about the Maison Freetown site and the Freetown neighborhood as a whole?
Erica Fox: The neighborhood as a whole, I'd love for more people, especially our youth, to learn and know that this was a place where African Americans pretty much picked themselves up by the bootstraps, so a lot of entrepreneurialism was established here. Businesses were flourishing at certain times in the history of Freetown, and we kind of lost some of that. Like, some of those places are either no longer here or abandoned. One of our missions is to, one, put up plaques where we can show and designate those spaces and use them as educational tools so that people can learn about the impact that African Americans contributed not just to Freetown but to Lafayette as a whole. So, this space currently has a gift shop, which is also a Co-op made up of indigenous black people of color. It's a BIPOC store of handmade artisans, which also ties back to the history of entrepreneurship in the community. It's providing an opportunity for black small businesses, and then again, we want to celebrate those spaces throughout the community and the neighborhood that people may not know about- those hidden histories. We've had everything from a dance hall, places on the negro motorist registry, we’ve had barbershops and grocery stores, and just places of celebration. I feel like people need to know. I know for some it may just seem like another grocery store, but when you are part of a community that everything was taken away from you – you weren't allowed to read, you weren't allowed to write, you weren't allowed to vote, you weren't allowed to have a business – those firsts mean a lot to this community. So, it’s important that we celebrate those, what may seem like small wins to some. It's major in the African American community.
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: So, you're doing a lot to share the history we have recorded already and showcase the continuation of the history today. But you're also involved in a couple of initiatives to add to the historical record, the archeological record, to provide more documentation of what Freetown was in the past and how it evolved to what it is today. What are some of the projects that have been going on to document that history?
Erica Fox: So, one that we're working on right now is documenting the language. I feel like that's one that's threatened, if you will. For me, our family's first language was French. And in the African American community, many of those working with the farms and the tenant farmers, they came from that background where they first spoke French before English. I think it’s important to tell that story and to hopefully keep it from dying. So, language is a project we're working on. We have Creole French tables being held here in the Center so that the elders that do continue to speak that old language if you will, can teach it to those interested in learning, and maybe brush up on some that may have heard it like myself in, you know, my family for years and years, but our grandparents didn't pass it on to us. It was their code, if you will, to speak with each other. But yeah, now I'm having an opportunity to learn and reconnect with my history through the language.
Another project we're working on is taking back the literary importance. So, we have a bookstore that we're going to establish so that we can highlight some authors, black authors, and poets that are writing and providing us a safe space for books that highlight African American culture, and that again is important because we are at a time when African American history and culture is being threatened. Especially in our libraries and public spaces, some of those books are being removed that have some type of basis that show cultural pride. We want to provide a safe space where people can still have access to those books, even if they're being taken out of school or library spaces. So, it's important to showcase a more diverse holistic view of the people that make up this community. Another project we are working on is our sound lab. We're building out a recording space where we are taking oral histories, first-person oral narratives, from community members. We started with those that are 80+, because we want to gather the stories of these culture bearers and these people that you know may not always be with us first. It's more critical to get the stories of the elders who lived here, experienced grandparents who you know, may have been some of those entrepreneurs we talked about, or remember different places in the neighborhood that may no longer still be standing. So, we're proud of our initiative to collect those oral stories in African American tradition. That's pretty much how we learned about things because you couldn't read or write, so oral stories were critical to our culture. So, we want to continue to gather those stories, and we've noticed there is a gap in some of those stories being documented. So, we definitely want our museum and our online presence to be that repository for those missing stories.
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: Why is it so important that the Community have such a huge role in documenting the oral history of this neighborhood?
Erica Fox: It's important for us to tell our own stories. Even when there is minimal documentation, it's always said from a lens outside of our community. It's just important for us to be able to tell our experiences that we've lived that aren't biased. Sometimes, when other people tell someone else's story, a lot gets lost. It's important to get these stories from the people that actually lived it. Going back to some of the places where some of the history of African Americans' may have been referenced, we weren't always seen as valuable. You'll see that in references where you'll see a family and maybe a black person in the picture. That person's never named or his occupation. It's just like, he's just in the picture. No one took the time to give that person relevance by giving a name or what he did. Same with some of the surveys or census records that aren't being found. You'll see a reference to a person, but there's no name, but it may say negro. We need to know who this person was. It's important to us, and I would hope that it's important to everyone to know about who these missing links to American history are.
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: Are there any other projects you want to mention?
Erica Fox: We want to start highlighting some of the African Americans that served in the military, especially those of the 6888 Battalion, during World War II. We have several members that lived in the community and nearby community that served to help solicit the mail during World War II, so our plan is to create an exhibit here that celebrates the African American contributions in the military. Then we are also doing for Juneteenth, we're telling the story of Marquis de Lafayette, who was a staunch abolitionist, and we want to tell the story of his efforts to end and abolish slavery. So, we're excited about those two exhibits coming up. It's also the bicentennial of Lafayette, so it couldn't have come at a better time.
Being Community Oriented
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: With all of the projects and initiatives and exhibits and all sorts of media that you're putting out, do you have an end goal with all your efforts that you're putting into Maison Freetown de Creole?
Erica Fox: The ultimate goal is just to have a safe space that the community can know is here and an activated space that they can utilize and share and learn, this was part of Ile Copal's sugar cane plantation, so some of the descendants that worked that land are still here. We want them to connect not just to that history but to know that they've been here a long time, and hopefully will be here a long time after. So much happened in this community that they can be proud of. You know, a lot of times, our story almost seems to start with slavery, but it did not. These people came from somewhere, and we want to be able to not only have a space where they can learn about that history, but also connect back to their African ancestry. So, we want this to be a loving space that folks can know about and utilize and learn about the rich past that is Freetown. Stay tuned. This space is always moving and evolving. We've got creatives that are showcasing their work, so we've got visual artists here on a regular basis and many exhibitions. People can learn more about us at maisonfreetown.org. That's our website. We just want them to stay tuned and find out what we're doing.
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: And where is the museum located?
Erica Fox: Museum is located at 800 E Vermilion St. in Lafayette, Louisiana. It's very close to the downtown area.
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: Thank you, Erica. We're looking forward to seeing all your projects and future endeavors come to fruition.
Erica Fox: Thank you.
Erica Fox: The ultimate goal is just to have a safe space that the community can know is here and an activated space that they can utilize and share and learn, this was part of Ile Copal's sugar cane plantation, so some of the descendants that worked that land are still here. We want them to connect not just to that history but to know that they've been here a long time, and hopefully will be here a long time after. So much happened in this community that they can be proud of. You know, a lot of times, our story almost seems to start with slavery, but it did not. These people came from somewhere, and we want to be able to not only have a space where they can learn about that history, but also connect back to their African ancestry. So, we want this to be a loving space that folks can know about and utilize and learn about the rich past that is Freetown. Stay tuned. This space is always moving and evolving. We've got creatives that are showcasing their work, so we've got visual artists here on a regular basis and many exhibitions. People can learn more about us at maisonfreetown.org. That's our website. We just want them to stay tuned and find out what we're doing.
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: And where is the museum located?
Erica Fox: Museum is located at 800 E Vermilion St. in Lafayette, Louisiana. It's very close to the downtown area.
Sadie Schoeffler Whitehurst: Thank you, Erica. We're looking forward to seeing all your projects and future endeavors come to fruition.
Erica Fox: Thank you.
Read other Preservation Technology Podcast articles or learn more about the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training.