INTENTION
The intention for the Black School is to make space for Black Love, Self- Determination and Wellness. Our Co-Founder Joseph Cuillier’s familial ties to the Seventh Ward led us to buy land at 1660 N. Roman St, New Orleans, LA because we recognized the need for youth programming and to hold space for community control in this historic neighborhood. The Community Center will house an art and design studio, garden, kitchen, art gallery, meditation room, library, digital fabrication lab, and computer lab.

After a year long community design research process that included multiple events, volunteer efforts, workshops, and surveying initiatives around the neighborhood, our architecture team (Whawn Allen Architects and Construction Consultants, Architect of Record and LOT-EK, Lead Design Architects) created initial plans featuring recycled shipping containers with metallic copper paint, reclaimed wood shutters, and solar roof. In the summer of 2025, we anticipate completing construction and starting programming in the community center.

HISTORY
The Schoolhouse is a contemporary adaptation of the Washington Rosenwald Schools. Over 150 years ago, Booker T. Washington emerged from emancipation with the belief that education would be the building blocks from which Black folks would construct better lives. With the philanthropy of then President of Sears Roebuck, Julius Rosenwald, Washington developed an initiative to build nearly 5,000 schools in collaboration with the local communities whom the schools would serve. As a condition of Rosenwald’s partial financial contribution all the schools were named after him.

The Rosenwald schools did more than just educate youth, they served as spaces for community organizing and congregation. The schoolhouse plans, widely distributed by the Washington/Rosenwald initiative in partnership with the Tuskegee Institute, included instructions for planting gardens for the community’s physical sustenance.

Our families’ legacy and how it fits into the wider history of Black school building as a catalyst for liberation has inspired us to build a 21st century schoolhouse which will function as a community center in New Orleans’ 7th Ward, a neighborhood still struggling in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.