July-teenth in St. John the Baptist Parish

The Descendants Project and Woodland Plantation are located in St. John the Baptist Parish, one of 13 Louisiana parishes that were exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation when it was issued on January 1, 1863. At that time, these areas were under Union control, and President Abraham Lincoln chose to exclude them in hopes of encouraging loyalty to the Union and expediting Louisiana's readmission into the United States. As a result, enslaved people in these parishes remained in bondage even as others across the South were declared free.

Louisiana officially abolished slavery in July of 1864, under a new state constitution. However, this legal end to slavery did not bring full freedom. Formerly enslaved people were denied civil rights, subjected to exploitative labor systems, and targeted by laws designed to control Black life and labor. The legacy of this delayed and conditional emancipation persists today, most visibly through mass incarceration but also through the plantation to petrochemical throughline. Holding our program in July acknowledges those whose liberation was delayed, contested, and redefined, and uplifts ongoing struggles for justice and true freedom.