WHAT IS THE
DESCENDANTS PROJECT?
The Descendants Project is an emerging organization committed to the intergenerational healing and flourishing of the Black descendant community in the Louisiana river parishes. The lands of the river parishes hold the intersecting histories of enslavement, settler colonialism, and environmental degradation.
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NPR- Louisiana plantation where historic slave revolt started now under Black ownership
Jo Banner is excited to show the newly acquired Woodland Plantation House near the banks of the Mississippi River.
“We have still a lot of work to do, but I think for the home to be from 1793, it looks rather good,” she beams.
Historically Black town in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley is divided over a planned grain terminal
Sisters Jo and Dr. Joy Banner live just miles from where their ancestors were enslaved more than 200 years ago in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana. Their tidy Creole cottage cafe in the small riverfront town of Wallace lies yards from property their great-grandparents bought more than a century ago.
ABC Good Morning America - Twin sisters buy former plantation to preserve and protect Black history
Growing up in Louisiana, in the bayous of the Mississippi River, identical twins Jocyntia "Jo" Banner and Joyceia "Joy" Banner always heard stories from their grandmother Grace, who would tell them about their enslaved ancestors and their history of fighting back at the very plantation the two women now own.
