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The connection between New Orleans, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal

New Orleans culture is Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal. Many Ghanaian's, Nigerians and Senegalese  resided in New Orleans after the Atlanta Slave Trade ended; Treme in New Orleans was founded byGhanaian's

Mrs. Alaina Paul-Mensah a native of New Orleans and Ghana through ancestral bloodline is the Founder CEO of Malachi's International Ministries NGO Ghana West Africa and Queens of Africa United International Foundation USA non profit registered in California

Driven by God and our ancestors spirits

Her elementary Catholic School Holy Redeemer in New Orleans was Founded by an African women from West Africa Marie C. Convent, she was brought over, sold, and married without children through the Atlantic Slave Trade. Marie C. Convent was the first Africa culture woman to build schools in america for poor black kids, or black kids period. And the very first schools in New Orleans for black kids.

It is only fair and right to give back and help West Africa. My school Foundation was based on her humanitarian efforts and contributions.

Here's the story behind Holy Redeemer School...
Marie C. Couvent
Native of West Africa Ghana
Former Slave
Free Woman of Color

Though Madame Couvent died over 160 years ago, her life, death, and legacy manifest themselves in a series of schools at Touro and Dauphine Streets.
Marie C. Couvent was born in West Africa in the middle of the 1700’s. Before being old enough to learn her family name, she was taken across the Atlantic to Haiti, and subsequently to New Orleans She later married Bernard Couvent, a free person of color, who New Orleans Architecture Volume IV: The Creole Faubourgs listed among the more known “early builders” of “some of the more interesting houses”. People described Madame Couvent as a pious and charitable soul.

Bernard Couvent preceded Marie in death. Childless and unable to read or write, the widow consulted Father Constantine Maenhault at St. Louis Cathedral to dictate her wishes for disposition of the Couvent properties. On June 29, 1837, at an approximate age of 80, Marie C. Couvent passed away. Her final journey brought her body from a funeral at the Cathedral to St. Louis Cemetery #2, which was then a fourteen year old grave yard. Her tomb lay just outside the city proper and an ocean away from her birthplace. The inscription reads “ici repose M. BERNARD COUVENT native d’Afrique”.
Madame Couvent’s will directed her property be used to provide free education for the “colored orphans” of the faubourg Marigny, many left without parents due to yearly plagues of yellow fever. She also left rental property as income for school upkeep. On April 20, 1847, Marigny developer Francois Lacroix and a group of free people of color received a state charter to fulfill Madame Couvent’s will. Soon, children began classes on property that Louisiana Historical Quarterly called the “first free school opened for colored children in the United States.”...

In short time, the Board of Directors erected a school building on the site. Harper’s Magazine visited in 1866 and reported favorably on its instruction methods, writing samples, math skills, and decorum. Tuition was free for orphans, twenty-five cents for half-orphans, and fifty cents for others. Classes were taught in French and English and the school provided paper, pencils, and books. All the teachers were of African descent, some educated in France or St. Domingue. The school’s faculty had a strong literary bend. School principal Armand Lanusse compiled a French language poetry anthology called Les Cenelles, the first poetry anthology by people of color in the United States. Other teachers were poets, writers, dramatists, and mathematicians. Paul Trevigne, editor of L’Union, taught there for forty years.

School and civic leaders at the Catholic School for Indigent Orphans in the nineteenth and twentieth century honored Madame Couvent’s memory. Lanusse instituted a yearly celebration and Mass in her honor. Additionally, students made All Saints Day pilgrimages to her grave site while the school’s Board of Directors assumed responsibility for the upkeep of her tomb. Couvent later became the first native of Africa to have an Orleans Parish school named for her.
In the 1890’s, the school’s Board of Directors president Arthur Esteves and several of its members waged a legal fight against segregated railroad cars that led to the famous United States Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson. Also in the 1890’s, in the spirit of Marie C. Couvent, civic leaders Aristide Mary and Thomy Lafon left money and property in their wills to construct a new building that contained several classrooms, a large center hall, and a high basement. This school fell victim to the 1915 hurricane that completely leveled the structure.

As part of its continuing tenacity, the school resurrected in still a third building as St. Louis School, named after the brother of Mother Katherine Drexel of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament who donated funds for the rebuilding. Board of Directors member Louis Charbonnet, a Millwright Supervisor and Eerecting Engineer, supervised construction of the two-story four-bay structure with its second story front porch overlooking Dauphine. As a historic note, the first Black mayor of New Orleans, Ernest N. "Dutch" Morial, attended Holy Redeemer in this building.

The current edifice opened in 1956 as the fourth school building on the site. In the 1990’s, decreases in attendance closed Holy Redeemer. In 1995, the Society of St. Edmund saved the Couvent dream from extinction when they established Bishop Perry Middle School as a school primarily aimed at the academic development of young African American males. The school’s Director of Development, Beverly Kilbourne, expresses wonderment and appreciation at the school’s history and the support of the Marigny community.

Holy Redeemer located at 1941 Dauphine Street is one of the first schools in new Orleans built for Black kids because they were not allowed to attend any other schools

Please help us by giving back in your generous  donation to build a State of the Art School in Ghana for kids who are suppressed and in destitute situations to attend and receive an education.

Year Round Annual Educational Trips to Ghana and Nigeria, Buy Gold, Business Opportunity

 *Immediate Honest  Business Opportunity Miners, Mining Manufacture Needed in Nigeria and Ghana, Low Investment