“DON’T STAND ALONE”: Black Labor Organizing in New Orleans

“DON’T STAND ALONE”: Black Labor Organizing in New Orleans
MARCH 14, 5pm-9pm (Thursday)
Small Center for Collaborative Design
1725 Baronne Street, New Orleans (Central City)
Free Entrance – RSVP
Light Refreshments Provided

This mobile exhibit centers on 12 panels that showcase the wide range of labor organizing in New Orleans — from musicians and domestic workers to longshoreman and hospitality — as well as important campaigns and moments of greater solidarity as seen in the 1892 General Strike or the Campaign for a Living Wage.

The exhibit will run from March 14 through May 10 at the Small Center.

The New Orleans Black Worker Organizing History Project began in 2014 with the aim to raise up the long history of Black-led labor organizing here and publish an online timeline to educate ourselves and our community. The project developed from a collaboration between lead organizers of Stand with Dignity — Alfred Marshall, Colette Tippy and Toya-Ex Lewis — an organized group of Black workers within the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice and Tulane University students of Sarah Fouts, now a Professor at University of Maryland-Baltimore County. From archival research done both by students and Stand members, the timeline launched on Juneteenth 2016. Before the pandemic disruption, leaders of the project started plans for a public exhibition highlighting particular events. We are ecstatic to bring this vision to a reality in 2024 and beyond.

Thank you to members of our Community Advisory Committee this past year and to community partners who we’ve worked with across the years. Special thanks go to university collaborators Prof. Jana Lipman and Jose Cotto at Tulane University, and Prof. Molly Mitchell and Prof. Max Krochmal at UNO. And finally to our hometown artist bringing this history to life, Langston Allston.

Where will you be able to see it once the run at the Small Center is over, you ask? While the exhibit team has leads for follow up locations in 2024, they are collecting suggestions for community spaces that would be excited to host the exhibit! If you have any leads, please reach out to Matt Olson at molson@nowcrj.org with a location and contact information.