Morgan City app has new Black history tour

(Editor's note: Grieg Chauvin, whose stories about Morgan City history have appeared in the Review, submitted this item about the new Black history tour.)

For over two years, a group of local citizens have been meeting to exchange ideas, share stories, and research the rich history of Morgan City’s Black community. The group includes Councilman Ron Bias, Evelyn Granger Bogan, Jacquelyn Pratt Brown, Greig Chauvin, Susan Favors Clay, Helen Watson Collins, Phyllis Stackhouse Glover, Vera Watson Jones, Natalie Oprien Johnson, Cornel and Wanda Martin Keeler, Ruby Granger Maize, Patsy White Powell, Jordan Richardson, Norma Jones Skinner, and Glenda Clark Stackhouse.
Thanks to these local citizens and with a generous grant from the H&B Young Foundation, a Black history tour, titled Preserving the Past, is available on the Explore Morgan City app.
The tour details 14 significant sites beginning with the pioneers of Morgan City’s Black community: Mayor Joshua Thomas, Postmaster F.M. Tucker, newspaper publisher Martin Lewis, businessman Sumpter Williams, community organizer Isaiah Mills, police and hospital Chaplain the Rev. Chrispin Smith, family physician Dr. E.F. Jacquet and others.
Morgan City’s six historic Black churches are sites on the tour. Mt. Zion, Mt. Pilgrim, Mt. Era, New Zora, Walmsley United and Lee Chapel are each over 100 years old with fascinating history.
Schools for Black children in our area began with the Morgan City Academy in the 1870s and included a Rosenwald school and several schools sponsored by the local churches, and culminated with Sumpter Williams High School.
The Green Book was published each year from 1936 through 1967 and contained lists of places from hotels to tourist homes, restaurants, and grocery stores where Black citizens could be served. Four of these Green Book locations existed in Morgan City. Two homes are still standing and are featured in the tour.
Celebrations is the title of the tour site that describes the parallel pathways that our Black and white residents followed in the past. Mardi Gras balls and parades were celebrated separately with the Black community having a Krewe of Zulu court, parade and monarchs. During the 1960 Centennial celebration, there was a Colored division that has its own queen, court and parade. There was also a separate Shrimp Festival division that chose at least five Black Festival queens during the 1950s and '60s.
And Morgan City has its share of famous Black citizens including Garrett Morris, Kyla Pratt and Janell Ennis Stephens.
Explore Morgan City tours are alive and well! If you haven’t given it a try yet, download the app to your phone or device from Google Play or the App Store or just type in Explore Morgan City on your computer to listen to and tours of our local history! There is so much to learn.
In addition to the tour, a limited edition book, also titled "Preserving the Past," has been released. Containing 200 pages of Morgan City’s rich and diverse history, the book allows a deeper look into the people and organizations, stories and contributions, names, dates, and details of people who have lived in Brashear/Morgan City since 1805.
This narrative includes archival material, word of mouth accounts of people, stories, and places, and internet research through the Library of Congress, Amistad Research Center, Newspapers.com, Ancestry.com, and others. As history is, this volume is continues to be a work in progress.
The book is now available at the Morgan City Public Library (for cash only) and at the L-H Printing Co. located at 207 Railroad Ave. for a cost of $25.00. Many of these stories have yet to be heard, and now is the time to document the impact these residents have had on our city and on our lives.
The Review wrote on Aug. 31, 1990, that “Gathering Black History can be likened to raking a yard on a windy fall day.
"All of the material for the job is there … but organizing it is another question entirely. There needs to be a concerted effort to gather, document, and narratively support Black History. ”