The civil rights icon’s childhood home in New Orleans will not be a museum after objections from her descendants

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — After Candice Henderson-Chandler moved to New Orleans and acquired her first home in 2021, she learned it played a key role in town’s civil rights history and was the childhood home of distinguished activist Oretha Castle Haley. Henderson-Chandler, who’s black, soon founded a nonprofit organization and planned to show a part of the property into a museum to honor the history.

She also listed a property on the rental site Airbnb, promoting her civil rights heritage, and sold museum memberships and civil rights-era products similar to “Freedom Fighter” citrus candles on her nonprofit’s website.

But on Thursday, a majority of the New Orleans City Council rejected Henderson-Chandler’s plans in a vote that might have modified the zoning plan to permit for the museum. Opponents of the museum warned that it was yet one more attempt by outside interests to commodify and profit from Black cultural heritage. Haley’s three sons and 7 grandchildren said in a statement that Henderson-Chandler was exploiting the civil rights activist’s legacy against their wishes.

“In our nation and our history, often the only thing they could leave you 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 a first and last name, there’s a reason why people in this town care so much about who uses your name and how.”

In 1960, Haley co-founded the New Orleans chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, considered one of the leading groups of the Civil Rights Movement. She was an instigator of change who played an “extremely significant” role 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 in New Orleans. Haley died in 1987, and a boulevard in town is now named after her.

The Haley family’s property at 917-919 North Tonti Street in Tremé, considered one of the oldest black neighborhoods in the country, served as a secure house where participants of the 1961 Freedom Rides fighting segregation on public buses could eat and spend the night. Since 2023, the property has been entered into the National Register of Monuments because the “Castle Family House”.

Haley’s younger brother, Johnny Castle, 79, remembers waking as much as prepare for varsity as a teenager and sometimes encountering a group of civil rights activists on the family home. Castle inherited the property in 1998 and held on to it for years while town of New Orleans and a local university discussed purchasing the home for preservation. The plans fell through and Castle said it could now not afford to keep up the property, relinquishing it as a part of bankruptcy proceedings in 2011.

Years later, he connected with Henderson-Chandler, a Chicago native, after she purchased the property. She said she initially planned to create a space where women of color could heal, but became fascinated by the home’s heritage. Castle “called me night after night, and I just fell in love with the story through his eyes, his storytelling and his countless memories,” Henderson-Chandler said.

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Castle, who lives in Georgia, said his relatives overestimate his sister’s influence in shaping the estate’s legacy. He said his parents, the owners of the home, also helped open its doors to activists. He supported Henderson-Chandler’s vision for a museum and community center.

“It’s a historic legacy that Candice continues and shares with the community,” he said.

One of Haley’s sons, Michael, also met with Henderson-Chandler after learning she owned the home. He said she initially told his family she planned to show the place into a wellness center.

“She never said she wanted to create any kind of museum” or anything related to his mother’s legacy, he said. He discovered her plans through social media posts that included photos of his mother. Henderson-Chandler said she has made efforts to contact Haley’s family.

Michael Haley and other members of the family sued Henderson-Chandler under the Allen Toussaint Legacy Act, a Louisiana law that protects the commercialization of deceased people’s identities without the consent of their heirs. In August 2023, a civil judge issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting Henderson-Chandler from “representing the legacy of Oretha Castle Haley in any way.”

Henderson-Chandler, who’s difficult the order, continued with plans for the museum, omitting mention of Castle Haley and specializing in the broader civil rights movement. Her lawyer, William Aaron, said Haley’s legacy does not represent the whole Civil Rights Movement in New Orleans and that a museum on the property could discuss the contributions of dozens of other activists.

“All of this could happen without any mention of Oretha Castle Haley,” Aaron said in an interview.

Haley’s descendants strongly disagreed with the claim that the estate’s meaning could be disconnected from Haley.

“How are you going to do it? She lived there!” Haley’s son, Okyeame Haley, told town council. “You will have a museum in the house where she lived, but her legacy will not be included. This is gibberish.”

“Everything at 917 (North Tonti Street) represents the legacy of Oretha Castle Haley, period,” one other of her sons, Sundiata Haley, told town council.

Haley’s granddaughter, Simone Haley, has stated that she believes the motivation behind creating the museum is money and that her family is not interested in commercializing the heritage. She addressed Henderson-Chandler directly on the council meeting.

“I like the concept that you are attempting to honor people. “I believe that stories should be told, but there is a right way to tell a story,” she said, sparking a verbal altercation between her and considered one of Henderson-Chandler’s friends.

Supporters of the museum identified that the home Haley owned in town and where she later raised her circle of relatives was now in disrepair and questioned why it was allowed to occur. Michael Haley said in an interview that the second property had not been in their family’s possession for several many years and had no bearing on the matter of the proposed museum. Supporters argued that thwarting the museum’s construction would eliminate the chance to share town’s history with the subsequent generation.

Henderson-Chandler said she consulted with other community members and received the blessings of veterans of the Civil Rights Movement.

Councilmember Morrell said relatives of two other distinguished city civil rights activists who died told him they’d not been informed about plans to display their legacies in a museum, which Henderson-Chandler’s attorney raised.

“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 that in voting down the museum, the City Council was following what “our ancestors would have wanted from us.”

“We will always stand and fight against those who want to take our culture, appropriate it, mishandle it and mismanage it,” he said.