The Way this came to be
The politics of belonging
Woodland Plantation Museum, located half a mile northeast of the Mississippi River in a low-rise residential neighborhood, this 3.61-acre property was originally part of an approximately 2,000-acre sugar plantation established in the late eighteenth century by Colonel Manuel Andry (1793).
Vacated in 2005, the property suffered from neglect for more than a decade. In 2017 the house was rehabilitated and from 2021-2022 served as a museum, commemorating Ory. In 2024 the Woodland Plantation was acquired by the non-profit organization, The Descendants Project.
The museum, if it is to survive its own history, must become a site of radical hospitality. A place where
people can enter without fear. A place that knows how to hold the trembling.A place where guests know they’ve entered into homecoming. Because hospitality is not the nicety of welcome. It is the politics of belonging. It asks: Who do we make room for? Who do we center? Who do we protect? It reminds us that curation is not only about objects or ideas…it is about making the world safe for tenderness.
What follows is the manifesto, written from the future we have already imagined and are already building. It is a record of care in the midst of collapse. It is a map toward the otherwise.
We aim to
Center descendants and community knowledge by recognizing their contributions, acknowledging their role in sustaining community and the history of their ancestors. through ethical research, oral history, and shared stewardship.