A Louisiana landscape of centuries-old sugar cane plantations and enduring Afro-Creole culture along the Mississippi River had been eligible for receiving rare federal protection following a multiyear review by the National Park Service.
But this month, the agency withdrew the 11-mile stretch of land known as Great River Road from consideration for National Historic Landmark designation at the request of state officials, who celebrated the move as a win for economic development.
Community organizations bemoaned the decision as undermining efforts to preserve the rich yet endangered cultural legacies of free African American communities that grew out of slavery.
The region, in the heart of Louisiana’s heavily industrialized Chemical Corridor in St. John the Baptist Parish, has been at the center of conflicts between grassroots community groups challenging the expansion of polluting industrial facilities and officials and business leaders doubling down on their importance for sustaining local economies. The area is among the most threatened by climate injustice in the nation, according to the Environmental Defense Fund’s climate vulnerability index.
The study deemed the region eligible to gain the same federal recognition as around 2,600 of the nation’s most important historical sites, including Mount Vernon, George Washington’s estate and Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s residence.
However, the determination was “premature and untimely” given that a grain terminal that threatened to impact historic properties was no longer planned, said the National Park Service’s Joy Beasley, who oversees the designation of historic landmarks, in a Feb. 13 letter to the Army Corps of Engineers.
Beasley’s letter stated the reversal was prompted by a request from the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, which is tasked with regulating environmental protection and has made no secret of its support for industrial expansion.
