NEW ORLEANS — In the backyard of a home on Tupelo Street in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans sits a tiny museum with a mighty story to tell.
The House of Dance and Feathers is a place where visitors can learn about the city’s unique African-American parading customs.
The museum takes you on a journey into the culture of the Mardi Gras Indians Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs and Skull & Bone gangs.
“I’m not one for public speaking but I would not like to just see my husband’s hard work go down to nothing," Charlotte "Minnie" Lewis said.
She decided it was time to reopen the museum.
Her late husband Ronald Lewis, founder of the Big 9 Social Aid & Pleasure Club, started the museum in their garage in 2003.
He was one of the first New Orleans culture bearers lost to Covid two years ago.
After Lewis passed, the museum went dark.
“As long as we have this place, we’re always going to have Ronald, not just in my heart, but in the hearts of other people,” Lewis said. “He’ll never be forgotten that way.”
The museum building was also damaged last year during Hurricane Ida.
UNO anthropologist Rachel Breulin and her Neighborhood Story Project, helped marshal the resources to reopen the exhibit.
The deck was repaired, and the floors replaced with wood provided by Robinson Lumber Co. and Mr. and Mrs. George R. Montgomery II.
“I would say the House of Dance and Feathers was like a lighthouse in the Lower Ninth Ward.,” Breulin said. “It was the first semi-public building rebuilt after Katrina.”
Chief Kenny Young from the 8th Ward Black Seminoles says it’s vital to keep the museum going.
“Just to teach the heritage to kids to know that they can get involved and they can help save their lives and teach the world who we are, like he did, through the culture,” Young said.
Tuesday afternoon, a large crowd gathered outside the museum for a grand reopening ceremony.
Ms. Minnie told us the House of Dance and Feathers should reopen to the public after the first of the year.