Historic Committee

Historians, genealogists, descendants, and environmental activists are collaborating to tell the story of the enslaved.

We’d love your input on historically preserving gravesites of enslaved people. [ Published on February 19, 2025, by Stephanie Oblena and Tyler Sanchez, Loyola Law Environmental Policy Lab, in collaboration with Caitlin O Hunter, Esq., Director of Research and Policy RISE St. James Louisiana. ]

Give Input

Orange Grove Cemetery

Orange Grove, primarily known as an former planation in Ascension Parish, contains the burial sites of many enslaved people. Descendants of the enslaved are not only limited in their access to visit their family, the gravesites risk of being destroyed by the Air Products blue hydrogen facility.

Black history is simply being minimized to a property transaction. Enslaved people who lived and died at the will of their enslavers are still being devalued and mistreated in their graves.

Historic Preservation

Protections for African American cemeteries are limited federally and in the state of Louisiana. There is no federal or Louisiana law that explicitly protects cemeteries of the enslaved. Rise is pursuing preservation of these historic Black graves by:

  • Nominating Orange Grove and Buena Vista cemeteries for the Louisiana Historical Marker Program
  • Applying for the Register of Louisiana Historic Cemeteries
  • Establishing the St. James Historic Committee

St. James Historic Committee

We are working to ensure that those buried may rest peacefully and that their stories continue to be celebrated and honored. The committee is community-based, and all are invited to attend the meetings where we will discuss the status of the gravesites, and collect input to determine the council’s next steps.

Report on burial practices at Orange Grove Plantation and cemetery

by: Katy Morlas Shannon, Master of Arts degree in History

Read the Report (PDF)

Think you may have a connection or be a descendant?

If you believe you have a connection to or maybe a descendant of the former Buena Vista and Orange Grove Plantations (or others in the area), we would love to hear from you. Sign up to join upcoming conversations about our shared history and connections to one another. Together, we can preserve our legacy and honor our ancestors.

Historic Committee Sign-Up

Louisiana Mapping Portal

Forensic Architecture

In the US state of Louisiana, along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, a heavily industrialized ‘Petrochemical Corridor’ overlays a territory formerly known as ‘Plantation Country’.

In the region’s majority-Black communities, residents – descendants of people historically enslaved on the same land – breathe some of the most toxic air in the country and suffer one of the highest risks of cancer, along with other serious health ailments.

As industrial development pollutes their air, it also threatens the burial grounds of their ancestors.

Visit the Map