NOLA Journey 2027

The historic African-American Tremé neighborhood features double shotgun houses, Creole cottages and townhouses. 

• The Le Musee de f.p.c. is one of the only historic house museums telling the story of free people of color. 
• The Backstreet Cultural Museum highlights Mardi Gras Indians, jazz funerals, social aid and pleasure clubs, Baby Dolls, and Skull and Bone Gangs.
• The New Orleans African American Museum highlights the contributions of the African diaspora to New Orleans and to America.
• Dating to 1841, St. Augustine is the country's oldest African American Catholic parish.
• On Sundays, enslaved residents and free people of color would gather in Congo Square to sing and dance, which helped New Orleans become the birthplace of jazz.
• We'll learn about the strutting and high-stepping social aid and pleasure clubs, jazz funerals, second lining ("jazz funerals without the body"), and other cultural traditions, especially at the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park  and/or the New Orleans Jazz Museum.  

The city has been home to Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, the Marsalis family, Jon Baptiste, and other music legends. Participants can experience New Orleans' soundrack--blues, Cajun, Dixieland, jazz, rock and roll, Zydeco, and more--at  venues like the Candlelight Lounge, House of Blues, Mother-in-Law Lounge, Preservation Hall,  Rock 'n' Bowl, and Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro.

By 1850, two-thirds of America's millionaires lived along the Great River Road on plantations made possible by enslaved laborers.

After an 1811 revolt by enslaved people (one of the largest in US history), Destrehan Plantation was site of one of the three trials. During the Civil War, the Union Army occupied the plantation and established the Rest Home Colony where the newly freed learned trades. 

The Whitney Plantation produced indigo, rice, and especially sugar between 1752 and 1975. In the years before the Civil War, more than 100 enslaved people produced over 400,000 pounds of sugar annually; at her death in 1860, owner Marie Haydel was one of Louisiana's largest slaveholders. Today the site includes over a dozen historical structures, including two slave dwellings, and permanent exhibits focusing on The History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and on Slavery in Louisiana.

We'll also:

• learn about

We anticipate at least one pre-trip potluck and informational meeting to which all participants will be invited.

We also hope interest warrants at least one post-trip potluck open to all travelers.

We're glad to include anyone at a distance via video-conferencing.

Beloved Community Journey participants and other curious adults can join a 29-30 October 2023 weekend immersion experience in Charlottesville, exploring historical and contemporary aspects of race through three themes...

• enslaved communities and three early presidents
• African-Americans and the University of Virginia 
• the Robert E. Lee statue and violent 2017 Unite the Right Rally of white supremacists

...at five historic sites...

• Monticello
• Montpelier
• Highland
• University of Virginia
• Market Street Park

Learn more about Racial Myth and Memory: A Charlottesville Case Study.

Join us on this six-day trip to Charleston and Savannah.

Charleston

More enslaved Africans first set foot on land in Charleston than anywhere else in North America, and the interstate slave trade was just as significant there. It's no wonder John C. Calhoun and other South Carolina political figures resisted abolition at all costs and that the first shots of the Civil War came at Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor.

In June 2015 at Mother Emanuel AME, one of the South's oldest Black churches, the pastor and eight parishioners were gunned down during Scripture study by a young white supremacist. The church is on a street still named for Calhoun.

We'll build our visit around the International African American Museum (opening in 2023) and other important sites, from the McLeod Plantation Historic Site to the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, housed in the Avery Normal School.

Savannah

Savannah is America's first planned city, and 22 of its 24 squares remain. The trans-Atlantic slave trade brought many African-Americans through its port, and many of them formed the unique Gullah Geechee culture of the coastal communities in Georgia and South Carolina.

The Pin Point Heritage Museum, located in an oyster and crab factory on the banks of the Moon River, shares the language, religion, foodways, and stories of this Gullah Geechee community, which occupies the largest African-American owned waterfront property on the East Coast.

Sapelo Island, a 20-minute ferry ride from the mainland, features a National Estuarine Research Reserve, the mansion once owned by North Carolina tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds, Jr., and the Hog Hammock community, permanent home to about 70 full-time residents, many of whom are descended from the enslaved laborers of Sapelo's plantations. 

The First African Baptist Church (home of North America's oldest black congregation), the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters Museum, the King-Tisdell Cottage, the African American Family Monument, and other sites give us insight into the rich African American history of Savannah. 

We'll also look forward to distinctive local culinary experiences, including at the Back in the Day Bakery. Co-owner Cheryl Day's great-great-grandmother, Hannah Queen Grubbs, was an enslaved pastry chef and the James Beard Award nominee learned to bake from her grandmother during summers spent with her in Alabama. She is a co-founder of Southern Restaurants for Racial Justice, which advocates for workers of color in the food industry.

 

Beloved Community Journey participants and other curious adults can join a Fall 2025 weekend immersion experience in Wilmington, exploring historical and contemporary aspects of race through three themes...

• Gullah Geechee and other African-Americans in coastal Carolina 
• the 1898 Wilmington race massacre
• Black Lives Matter and other racial justice efforts

...at multiple historic sites...

• Poplar Grove Plantation
• Bellamy Mansion Museum of History and Design
• 1898 Monument and Memorial Park
• University of Virginia

Learn more about Racial Myth and Memory: A Wilmington Case Study.

Explore the history of Quakerism by retracing the 17th-century footsteps of George Fox, founder of the Religious Society of Friends--and of Margaret Fell, an early supporter and later his wife--through the beautiful Lake District of northern England.

And, find adventure, learning, and reflection in community. In addition to being a nourishing experience for us individually, the Journey is a wonderful way to deepen relationships and build a stronger sense of community among F/friends and Friends institutions.

Learn more about the Quaker Journey.