Dateline: Whitney Plantation, Louisiana
Dear Leading Ladies,
As we approached the Whitney Plantation an hour outside New Orleans, my mind returned to a family visit to Williamsburg, Virginia, when I was about seven years old. I remember lots of sunshine and blue sky and people, both black and white, dressed up in pastels, the women with wide skirts and ruffled bodices, the men with tight pants, fancy jackets and wigs. Everything looked very festive and happy. I knew in advance that Whitney would be a different experience.
Whitney opened to the public in 2014 to tell the true story of slavery and plantation life. The project was financed by John Cummings, a very wealthy white man seeking a meaningful way to give back (yes, there are such people). He quickly started working with scholar and historian Dr. Ibrahima Seck to make Whitney a reality. In more recent years, the Cummings family stepped aside and the site is currently run by a board of directors, many of whom are descendants from the enslaved that were held at Whitney Plantation.
Walking into the visitors’ entrance, the lighting is low. My pastel memories were met with gray and brown. The small shop as you enter and exit offers many books about Black history, slavery, literature, cuisine, and more, as well as some jewelry and other wearable art. What is not there are tee shirts and baseball hats with Whitney logos or other tchotchkes with Whitney ornamentation. This is not slavery by Disney.
As I entered, I was handed an audio device with 14 different explanations of places to hear about on the walk around the grounds. I was also given an admission ticket that consisted of a ribbon to go around my neck with a 3” by 4” card attached. On the front was a photo of a sculpture by Woodrow Nash of a child who had been enslaved; on the back were words of Shack Wilson, a person enslaved in southern Louisiana and recorded years later as part of the New Deal’s Federal Writers Project: “Trying to forget all those horrible days of slavery. Way back yonder I was born in Clinton, Louisiana and belonged to Mars B. Roins. They used to whip slaves if they didn't pick enough cotton. They put four pegs in the ground and tied one leg to one peg, the other to the other and the arms were tied together. They were stripped of all clothing and whipped with a raw hide...Then they’d put to picking cotton with all that suffering…” There are 20 such cards with the photos of sculptured enslaved children and quotes. Each visitor is given one to take home, a haunting souvenir.
Slave auction jail
I walked alone around the plantation, stopping at every number to listen to the explanation of what I was seeing. The extreme silence struck me. Although there were many visitors, everyone was very quiet. Library quiet. I exchanged pleasantries with a few people as I passed them in doorways, but I noticed little chitchat, even among people who were there together. Also absent were scores of staff. Certainly there were none dressed in costumes of the period, either as white landowners or Black enslaved people. Clearly this is a choice. Whitney is a somber place to learn and experience history, not a venue for amusement or lightheartedness. In place of enactors are statues of young children by Nash — on doorsteps, inside the church, elsewhere. They make the environment come alive.
If I saw no people enacting the day-to-day life of the enslaved and the ruling class of a plantation, what I did see were the buildings and how they reflect the differences in wealth and power. The “big house” was occupied by the plantation owner and his family, but also by the house slaves. We often read that house slaves had an advantage over field slaves, but the Whitney narration makes it clear that house slaves had the distinct disadvantage of being on call to the master 24/7 and more than frequently being sexually abused. One advantage, however, was to overhear business and personal transactions of the master that were passed on to activists planning escapes and uprisings.
The slave quarters at Whitney reflect the dire conditions imposed on those people owned by the masters. Each cabin housed at least two families. Close quarters, limited food and healthcare, exposure to occupational risks from work tools and accidents, all made life as an enslaved person perilous. Deaths, especially among children, were common. In fact, 2,200 enslaved children died in St. John the Baptist Parish between 1823 and 1863.
Other buildings at Whitney include a blacksmith shop, the location of the plantation store (where, after the end of slavery, Black workers bought on credit and found themselves unable to leave because they were too far in debt), a church (not original), a jail probably used for slave auctions, a separate kitchen building, and the overseer’s house. There are large vats in which the sugar cane was boiled down (the main crop was sugar cane after indigo was abandoned), and railroad wagons to transport the sugar.
Sculptures by Nash of enslaved children
In addition to the historical buildings and items at Whitney, artwork tells the emotional story in ways that only art can. There is one large memorial to people who were enslaved at Whitney with any information known about them; and another one to those who died in the great insurrection in Louisiana in 1811. There are also the many sculptures of children by Woodrow Nash, who also created dozens of black, life-sized men’s heads stuck on sticks in the ground to memorialize revolutionaries of the 1811 uprising. A bronze statue by Rod Moorhead of a black angel holding a baby is in an area dedicated to the 2,200 slave children who died before their third birthdays in St. John the Baptist Parish. A larger-than-life sculpture by Wesley Wolford entitled “Hope Out of Darkness, depicts Solomon Northup, the subject of the book and film 12 Years a Slave, is one more heart-rending art piece that adds to the story being told at Whitney.
Sculpture by Nash commemorating victims of 1811 insurrection
The last segment on the audio tour device is Dr. Seck: “If [you] leave the plantation feeling guilty or angry, that means I have failed in my mission. Because this museum is about educating people about the past. It may be a very painful past, but we cannot hide history. Hidden history hurts.” Guilt and anger can paralyze; knowledge can activate.
As our federal Department of Education is dismantled, as teachers and schools are forbidden to teach about racism and slavery and the stain on our country’s history, places like Whitney Plantation become more important sources of knowledge. It is imperative that we all educate ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren with facts. Let’s take them to places like Whitney Plantation instead of DIsneyland. To be clear, Whitney Plantation is not the only venue to recreate and present the accurate Black experience rather than the glorified white one. As Colin Smith writes in his terrific book, How, the Word is Passed, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, the infamous Angola Prison, and Galveston Island are among others.
Let’s also keep supporting schools and teachers who want to teach the truth. If public schools are going to lose their federal dollars for teaching the true American history, maybe Sunday schools will have to pick up the slack. How else can we make the truth louder and stronger? We’d like to hear more ideas and share them.
Therese (she/her/hers)
Judy (she/her/hers)
Didi (she/her/hers)
Leading Ladies Executive Team