NEW ORLEANS– After Candice Henderson-Chandler moved to New Orleans and bought her first home in 2021, she found that this had played a key role in the city’s civil rights history and was the childhood home of a prominent activist, Oretha Castle Haley. Henderson-Chandler, who is Black, soon formed a nonprofit organization and planned to convert part of the property into a museum to celebrate this history.
She also listed the property on the rental site Airbnb, where she marketed her civil rights legacy, and sold museum memberships and civil rights era products like “Freedom Fighter” on her nonprofit’s website -citrus candles.
But on Thursday, the majority of the New Orleans City Council rejected Henderson-Chandler’s plans in a vote that would have changed the zoning ordinance to allow for a museum. Opponents of the museum warned that it was yet another attempt by outside interests to market and profit from the city’s rich black cultural heritage. Three of Haley’s sons and seven of her grandchildren said in a statement that Henderson-Chandler exploited the civil rights activist’s legacy against their wishes.
“In our people and our history, often the only thing they could leave you with was your name — that is the history of black people in the United States,” said Council Member Jean Paul Morrell, who voted against the museum. “If all you have is your name, there’s a reason why people in this city care so much about who uses your name and how.”
In 1960, Haley co-founded the New Orleans chapter of the Congress of Race Equality, one of the leading groups in the Civil Rights Movement. She was a changemaker who was “extremely important” in leading protests and sit-ins to desegregate New Orleans, said Clyde Robertson, director of the Center for African and African American Studies at Southern University of New Orleans. Haley died in 1987, and a boulevard in the city now bears her name.
The Haley family’s property at 917-919 North Tonti Street in Tremé, one of the nation’s oldest black neighborhoods, served as a safe house where participants in the 1961 Freedom Rides to combat segregation on public buses could get meals and could spend the night. As of 2023, the property is listed on the National Historic Registry as the ‘Castle Family Home’.
Haley’s younger brother, Johnny Castle, 79, remembers waking up as a teenager to get ready for school and often finding a slew of civil rights activists staying at the family home. Castle inherited the property in 1998 and kept it for years while the city of New Orleans and a local university discussed how to purchase the house for preservation. The plans did not materialize and Castle said he could not afford the costs of maintaining the property, relinquishing it in 2011 during bankruptcy proceedings.
Years later, he came into contact with Chicago native Henderson-Chandler after she purchased the property. She said she initially planned to create a space for women of color to heal, but became fascinated by the home’s legacy. Castle “called me night after night, and I just fell in love with the history through his eyes, through his stories, through his countless memories,” Henderson-Chandler said.
Castle, who lives in Georgia, said his relatives overestimated his sister’s influence in shaping the property’s legacy. He said his parents, the owners of the house, had also contributed by opening the doors to activists. He supported Henderson-Chandler’s vision for a museum and community center.
“That’s the historical legacy that Candice continues, that she makes available to the community,” he said.
One of Haley’s sons, Michael, also met with Henderson-Chandler after learning she owned the house. He said she initially told his family she planned to turn it into a wellness center.
“She never said she wanted to set up a museum” or anything related to his mother’s legacy, he said. He discovered her plans through social media posts featuring images of his mother. Henderson-Chandler said she made efforts to reach the Haley family.
Michael Haley, along with other family members, sued Henderson-Chandler under the Allen Toussaint Legacy Act, a Louisiana law that protects the commercialization of the identities of deceased persons without the consent of their heirs. In August 2023, a civil court issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting Henderson-Chandler from “representing the legacy of Oretha Castle Haley in any manner.”
Henderson-Chandler, who challenged the order, went ahead with plans for a museum that did not mention Castle Haley and emphasized the broader civil rights movement. Her attorney, William Aaron, said Haley’s legacy did not represent the entire civil rights movement in New Orleans and that a museum on the property could discuss the contributions of dozens of other activists.
“All of that could happen without any mention of Oretha Castle Haley,” Aaron said in an interview.
Haley’s descendants strongly disagreed that the meaning of the property could be separated from Haley.
“How are you going to do that? She lived there!” Haley’s son Okyeame Haley told the council. ‘You get a museum in the house where she lived, but her legacy is not included. It’s nonsense.’
“Everything at 917 (North Tonti Street) represents the legacy of Oretha Castle Haley, period,” another son of Sundiata Haley told the council.
Haley’s granddaughter, Simone Haley, said she believed the underlying motivation behind the museum was money and that her own family had no interest in commercializing the legacy. She addressed Henderson-Chandler directly at the council meeting.
“I like the idea that you guys are trying to honor people, I think the stories need to be told, but there is a correct way to tell the stories,” she said, leading to a verbal altercation between her and one of Henderson -Chandler’s friends. .
Supporters of the museum pointed out that the home Haley owned in the city and where she later raised her own family was now in a deplorable state and questioned why this had been allowed to happen. Michael Haley said in an interview that the other property had been out of their family’s possession for decades and was not relevant to the issue of the proposed museum. Supporters said thwarting the museum would deprive the opportunity to share the city’s history with the next generation.
Henderson-Chandler said she consulted with other community members and received blessings from veterans of the Civil Rights Movement.
Morrell, the council member, said relatives of two other prominent deceased civil rights leaders in the city had told him they were not aware of plans to highlight their legacies at the museum, which Henderson-Chandler’s attorney referred to had been put forward.
“If you want to tell someone’s story, you have to talk to their family about it,” Morrell said.
Haley’s grandson, Blair Dottin-Haley, said the council, in voting against the museum, had followed what “our ancestors wanted us to do.”
“We will always stand up and fight against those who want to take our culture and misuse and mismanage it,” he said.
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Associated Press journalist Stephen Smith contributed to this story.
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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Brook on social platform X: @jack_brook96
