What To Know About Visiting Whitney Plantation With Kids
A painfully moving experience that kids need to visit
When we started mapping our civil rights history road trip as a family, the first question was where to start. Enter one of Tabitha’s mentors. She recommended we talk to Paul Mayo from the Civil Rights Experience 1619 who takes young people on trips like this all the time. When I told Paul about our itinerary, he was crystal clear that we absolutely needed to start with Whitney Plantation in Edgard, Louisiana close to New Orleans.
And that’s just what we did, so today, let’s delve into our visit to the plantation.
We’ll cover:
A bit of history
Whitney Plantation: Kid Perspective-How our 9-year-old and 4-year-old engaged with the site
Our 5 recommendations for planning a family visit
AND we’re starting a new series called On Our Bookshelves where we share the books we’re reading ourselves and with our kids this week. On this trip, we wanted to support the different sites we visited so we allowed the kids to get meaningful items in the various gift shops. Both of our kids and us are avid readers so we picked up books wherever we visited. Keep reading to see the ones we chose.
One note on language: when we refer to people who were forced into slavery, we use language that indicates that they were so much more than the slavery of their circumstances. So we use “people who were enslaved” to center their personhood as opposed to “slaves”.
Let’s get into it, shall we?
History:
Whitney Plantation is an hour outside of New Orleans. New Orleans has long been a port of entry for a wide range of people, including over 21,000 people from Africa who were forcibly brought to be enslaved. They were forced to build the city itself, or they were trafficked to one of the hundreds of sugar and cotton plantations in the area. Whitney Plantation has become both a museum and memorial to those people.
The white family that lived on Whitney Plantation enslaved 114 people who spent 3 months on their voyage from Africa to America (20% of those who were forced on that trek didn’t survive the journey).
On the site, there were different buildings like a church, a jail (seen below), the big house, a store, etc.
The labor of people who were enslaved built these buildings and kept them running smoothly. There is also a small exhibit space at the museum entrance, where we learned about “Cancer Alley”, the 85-mile stretch between New Orleans and Baton Rouge dominated by petrochemical and fossil fuel companies, causing high rates of cancer in the largely Black population in the area today.
Black Exceptionalism
Tabitha here: Once on the tour, we learned that the big house on the plantation was managed by a white overseer, not the owner, who oversaw the people who were enslaved. The overseer would identify those among the people who were enslaved who had special skills and they were able to earn tips for their skilled labor.
When I learned this, I thought about the roots of Black Exceptionalism—Black people feeling like they needed to attain the approval of white folks for their labor, for their value to be validated. It’s the trope of the exceptional Black person. You’ve probably heard people refer to the super smart Black kids in schools and compare all other Black kids to them, wondering “If he/she/they can make it, why can’t everyone?”. We’re talking about the white people who love Oprah and Tiger Woods but cross the street when a Black person approaches them. It’s a lesson for us parents/caregivers who want to teach our kids about Black history. When searching for books and stories for kids that honor Black people, YES look for books that tell the big bold stories of Black innovators and history makers AND also seek out books and stories that feature Black kids and people simply living life with ease, joy and a soft place to land, like these. The concept of Black Exceptionalism centers whiteness because it assigns value to only the Black people who achieve a level of success that satisfies the white gaze. As I took in the presence of the big house, built upon the denigration of Black people’s labor, I also thought of the impact of children growing up within this ideology during the era of slavery.
Women and Children
Because people who were enslaved were categorized according to the value of their labor, women and children were sold for lower amounts. Nevertheless, they all worked from “cannot see to cannot see”. This means that they worked before sun up to after sun down. Louisiana law at the time dictated that childhood ended at age 10 so at this age, children were taken away from their parents or their caregivers and sent to work. This had a particular impact on our 9-year-old, as we talked about what was allowed for those his age (limited playing, no toys), and what would be allowed when he turned ten (work).
Many women had kids when they were kids themselves leading to many of them dying young. This brought to mind last week which was Black Maternal Health Week organized by Black Mamas Matter Alliance. It’s 2024 and Black women are still three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. Sit with that for a minute.
Tabitha here: The Wall of Honor, dedicated to all the people who were enslaved on Whitney Plantation, was particularly impactful for me because they listed the names of children that had died on the plantation. Many of them did not live to see their first birthdays, so dangerous were the conditions under which they lived.
The plantation was a moving, profound and sobering experience for all. The entire place was peppered with locations that held meaning for everyone but especially for people who are the descendants of those who were enslaved. It was heartbreaking and infuriating to witness it all but also necessary to face the realities of what life used to be like for Black people. This country has come a long way in some ways and in others, not nearly far enough.
Whitney Plantation: Kid Perspective
Our 9-year-old son listened to the entire audio tour for a few reasons.
He was in motion. He was walking, reading, and visiting different sites on the plantation.
He interacted with the audio device. He navigated the space while pressing the corresponding buttons to hear different prompts with information.
He was old enough to understand the content of the different sites, though there were certain parts that we made sure to talk about with him after, like the memorial to the children.
Our 4-year-old was too young to process much of this so we engaged her in finding a kids book in the gift shop. She spent most of the time pressing random buttons on the audio device, walking around with her brother, and sitting in her stroller taking it all in.
Our top 5 recommendations for planning to visit:
Know what you need from the space- Tabitha here: I’m going to be brutally honest with you. I really wanted to learn without white people around me at a pace that would allow me to process things. This is not because the history is not important for everyone, but just that this site lands differently for Black people. Adam knew this so as soon as we got to the plantation, I walked ahead so that I could learn at my own pace. I had the chance to fully be present and process all the emotions that came up for me. At certain times though, I would be reading an installation and a white person would walk directly in front of me and block my view. If you’re white and you visit the plantation, please be aware of your physical space and that this site is already dominated by the pressing oppression by white people. It was a physical manifestation of this that white people weren’t aware enough to not take up more space around me as a Black woman.
Adam here: This is a site that’s best for kids who are probably 8 and older. We recommend having convos about slavery with them beforehand or as they go so that this site has the necessary context. This isn’t to say that young kids shouldn’t attend because what they absorb should never be underestimated. We also advise having conversations with kids after the visit. We always go for open ended questions and reflective answers. That looks like “What did you think of Whitney Plantation? What did you think of the Wall of Honor?” “Oh that’s what you thought? Hmm interesting, tell me more”.
Whitney Plantation is an hour away from New Orleans with not that many food options close by so pack snacks or sandwiches for kids (and adults, as we got hungry by the end, too).
Though the site is filled with many pensive and hurtful moments of reflection, the space is huge and spread out enough for kids to walk independently and not be constrained. This helped our son work through the different markers on his own timing. It is important to note that the tone is quiet and reflective, so keep that in mind for kids who need space to be loud and roam.
The site offers limited tickets, so we made sure to book ours the day before. We had rented a car for our road trip, and driving there is essential since this is in rural Louisiana (even though it’s only an hour from New Orleans).
On Our Bookshelf
Tabitha is reading:
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Our kids are reading:
Hooray for She, He, Ze, and They! By Linds Amer
Stacey’s Remarkable Books by Stacey Abrams
That’s it for today. Stay tuned for the next step on our road trip, the rural quilting community of Gee’s Bend, Alabama. Chag Sameach/Happy Passover to all those for whom the holiday holds meaning (may we live to see a day when all are free). Take care of yourselves and love up on your kids, okay?
Tabitha & Adam