African American Museum in Houma seeks help after Hurricane Ida damage houmatoday.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from houmatoday.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Curator: people may find their history in slave ship exhibit
May 2, 2021
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HOUMA, La. (AP) A Black history museum in Louisiana has a new exhibit about one of the last slave ships one which brought 400 Africans illegally to the United States and sold some of them in south Louisiana.
Margie Scoby, president and curator of the Finding Our Roots African American Museum in Houma, says the exhibit may help visitors learn about their own histories. Some of the people carried by the ship named The Wanderer were sold to plantations in Terrebonne, Lafourche and St. Mary parishes, The Courier reported.
Finding Our Roots African American museum to reopen
by The Associated Press
Last Updated Apr 23, 2021 at 4:14 pm EDT
HOUMA, La. After closing to the public about a year ago amid the coronavirus pandemic, Finding Our Roots African American Museum will reopen Saturday in Houma.
The museum will feature a new exhibit called “Blood, Sweat and Tears,” which tells the story of one of the last slave ships, “The Wanderer.” The ship contained more than 400 people who were brought illegally to American shores, some sold into slavery in Terrebonne, Lafourche and St. Mary parishes, The Courier reported.
The exhibit will feature soil collections from plantations in the Houma-Thibodaux area, pictures of slave owners, documentation of those known to be enslaved on numerous plantations and activities for children.
Houma s Finding Our Roots African American museum to reopen with new exhibit houmatoday.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from houmatoday.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Dr. Theodore Kenneth Lawless led one of those lives for which Black History Month was created.
Born in Thibodaux on Dec. 6, 1892, Lawless was world-renowned for his research and treatment of syphilis; Hansen s disease, also known as leprosy; and cancer, despite facing the prejudices of his time.
In his later years, he used his substantial wealth to help others before he died May 1, 1971, at the age of 78.
Margie Scoby, president of the Finding Our Roots African American Museum in Houma, said Lawless story is one of many that need to be better-known.
“Many times, African Americans are not put in the forefront or not even talked about,” Scoby said. “Many times, you don’t even hear about them in the schools, so I think it’s very important that we bring it up and celebrate these people because they’ve done wonderful things. . It shows that so many great people have come from the Houma-Thibodaux area.”