Born into enormous wealth in New Orleans in 1911, Rosa Freeman Keller used her position to fight social injustices on many fronts. Keller championed the causes of the Civil Rights Movement, often at great personal and financial risk. Among her many substantial contributions to the community, Keller led the effort which resulted in the desegregation of the New Orleans public libraries.
A poster asking for support for the Free Southern Theater.
A photograph of Tom Dent pictured with a poster for the Free Southern Theater.
Antoine Louis Collas' "Portrait of a Free Woman of Color Wearing a Tignon," painted in oils in 1829, measures 44 x 36 inches. Collas was famed for his miniatures, but was also a gifted portraitist working on a larger scale.
François Fleischbein is believed to have painted “Portrait of a Free Woman of Color” in 1840. Many speculate that the subject may have been the voodoo priestess Marie Laveau, since a free woman of color must have been of high stature in New Orleans to have sat for her portrait
Black commuters assembled at pickup points for free rides during the five-day Baton Rouge bus boycott of 1953. Horatio Thompson, the first African American in the South to own an Esso gasoline station franchise, sold gas at cost to carpool drivers.
New Orleans based rapper Big Freedia speaks about bounce music.
Jules Lion, one of antebellum New Orleans' successful free black artists, illustrated the sheet music “Free Market Waltz.”
New Orleans' unique three-tiered racial system which accepted free people of color as a separate caste from enslaved blacks provided a unique opportunity for free black artists.
Founded in 1963, the Free Southern Theater was designed as a cultural and educational extension of the civil rights movement in the South.
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