Hello Choctaw-Southeast-List Members, I thought you may be interested in some excerpts from The Times-Picayune article by Bruce Eggler, dated 8/8/2002, on the forced closing of the Confederate War Museum in New Orleans, a museum which has operated in the same spot for about the last 75 years in a building it was given by one of Tulane University's biggest benefactors to display the artifacts and history of the Civil War and the Confederacy. To those of you who have studied how many Choctaw lost their homes in Mississippi after the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek some of this might sound painfully and all too familiar. ------------- Excerpts from: "Civil War Artifacts Offered New Home" by Bruce Eggler, The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, 8/8/2002 "If the Confederate Museum is forced to vacate its longtime home on Camp St., the Louisiana State Museum is ready to take over the task of housing and displaying the collection of Civil War artifacts, the director of the state museum said Wednesday."......... "'The loss or damage of these artifacts would be unconscionable,' said Sefcik, director of a museum system that includes the Cabildo, the Presbytere, the Old U.S. Mint, a histroy museum under construction near the Capitol in Baton Rouge and several other buildings in New Orleans and around the state."........ "Judge C. Hunter King said the University of New Orleans" [UNO] "is the legal owner of the site and therefore has the right to evict the Confederate Museum and its collection to make way for the new Ogden Museum of Southern Art. "The Ogden Museum is renovating a historic building on the upriver side of the Confederate Museum and building a new five-story structure on the downriver side. Having control of the building at 929 Camp" [The Confederate Museum] "would give UNO direct access between the two buildings. "The Confederate Museum plans to appeal King's ruling to the state 4th Circuit Court of Appeal, and museum offiicials have vowed they will never leave voluntarily. "Elizabeth Williams, president of the UNO Foundation, has indicated the University will not try to evict the museum and its collection immediately. "Sefcik said he is not trying to take control of the Confederate Museum's collection, which is one of the nation's largest assemblages of Civil War artifacts and likely would fetch millions of dollars if sold at auction. "'The Louisiana State Museum takes no position in the matter between the Confederate Museum and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art,' he said. 'We are concerned about the future of the magnificent collections housed in Confederate Memorial Hall.' "UNO officials have said they might agree to turn the building at 929 Cammp into a Civil War wing of the Ogden Museum and display a small part of its collection but that most of the objects would have to be removed. "Sefcik said the state museum 'is prepared to accept the collections currently at the Confederate Museum, store them properly in as secure, temperature- and humidity-controlled environment, conserve those requiring such attention as funds permit, and ultimately display them in state museum facilities both in New Orleans and elsewhere.' "The board of Memorial Hall Museum would have to agree to turn over ownership and management of its collection to the state, Sefcik said. 'We don't have a home for the Confederate Museum, simply for the objects in the collection,' he said. "Many of the items could be displayed on the second floor of the Mint, 400 Esplanade, in space now used for storage, Sefcik said. The items now stored there would be transferred to a building at 1000 Chartres St. that the museum recently renovated for use as a state-of-the-art warehouse for artifacts. "Other Confederate Museum artifacts could be displayed at the Cabildo, which has exhibits on Louisiana history from colonization through Reconstruction, and at the Baton Rouge Museum, which will cover the state's entire history. "The 35,000-square-foot Baton Rouge museum will offer as much exhbit space s the Cabildo, Presbytere and Mint combined....... "The state museum also is working on developing materials for a museum, probably in New Orleans, dealing with the history of the civil rights movement in the state. A site has not been chosen...." *********** "Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com..." ------------------------ This is the end of the article. As you can see the Lousiana State Museum has a home for the Confederate Museum's artifacts, a huge home, a home that has a huge need for priceless artifacts, just so long as the Board of Directors of the Confederate Museum relinquishes ownership of these priceless artifacts and doesn't come with them, and the Louisiana State Museum also has need of a location for its planned museum on the civil rights movement in the state and since the Confederate Museum will more than likely be removed from its current location in any event, well what better place than where the Confederate Museum is right now, since it is highly unlikely that the Board of Directors would allow its vast collection to be turned over to the Ogden Museum and made into a small Civil War Wing. What is not seen is that UNO [the University of New Orleans] is part and parcel of the Louisiana State University system and is controlled by the state of Louisiana which also controls the Louisiana State Museum system. Over the years there have been repeated propaganda campaigns against the Civil War Museum which have indoctrinated many people into believing that the Civil War Museum is a glorification of the Old South and Slavery and the Confederacy and ought to be closed down. Of course if all of these priceless artifacts are on display at an official museum of the State of Louisiana than that would be different and wouldn't be a glorification of the old South and the Confederacy. It would just be a display of history even though that is exactly what it is now. It just isn't controlled by the state or the Ogden Museum or someone else other than the people who have displayed it for the last 75 years in a building which they were bequeathed by a Jewish philanthropist who also funded, if memory serves me correctly, the creation of the Howard Tilton Library at Tulane University and who wished there to be a place to house and display the artifacts of the Civil War. But since, there are people with the UNO Foundation who can literally produce out of thin air a title to that same building, a title that no one had ever seen during the last 75 years, then it's not all that difficult to get a judge to legally turn control of the museum over to the state, is it? I hope you all will take good note of just how easy it is for many well-connected and well-financed foundations and academics and government-run boards and commissions to take control of something they want regardless of who owns it. And if a treaty were involved well that would be just a minor detail for these legalized thieves. John Craven New Orleans