Our History
A Legacy of Collective Care
In 1904, the St. Paul Benevolent Association was founded to facilitate mutual aid through home healthcare and funerary assistance among members of the community on the west bank of the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish. The association moved into the building of the Morningstar Benevolent Association, a local chapter of a regional freedpeople’s organization that had organized Oakville’s first school beginning in 1872. The building and the organization that it housed became a central fixture for Oakville and for the community’s networks for generations.
Bishop Wilfret Johnson remembers: “it was a society of people. It transcended church lines. You didn't have to be a member of a church, you had to be a member of the community. Your sickness has no reference to whether you’re saved or not, and whether you are well or not, you know, and so, so therefore, they went into people's houses, when I came into it, and but certainly 1904 That's what it did it. It was a forerunner of the home health care program.”
A site of Protection and Affirmation
By the 1960s, this ethos of inclusion continued as the space was used to fill more social functions. The building had become a site for graduations, repasts, and weddings. It served as an indoors extension of the lively, safe, idyllic public space that Oakville’s mid-twentieth century children remember. Another quote: “St. Paul was like that, that was the place for the community. Yeah, as long as it was there. The community had a place where it can come together. Transcending streets, transcending what church you were a member of, transcending what community you came from, you came in, and we all were one.” And “when it came down to St. Paul as a building, that was for everybody.” This inclusive ethos made St. Paul a crucial site for displaced Black communities of lower Plaquemines Parish during and after Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and Hurricane Camille in 1969, when it was used as a center for dispensing emergency supplies and providing a social nexus for people who were temporarily displaced as they repaired their homes.
A NEW HOME
In 1968 the Louisiana Department of Highway began the expansion of highway 23 from a two lane highway to four lanes. This plan resulted in the structural demolition and relocation of the St. Paul Benevolent Association Hall and the Oakville Missionary Baptist Church building. In 1970, the church and the association rebuilt and re-opened on their present locations and continued carrying on their legacy of support to the community.
The St. Paul Hall continued as the central meeting place for Oakville residents as they who organized against environmental injustice from the early 1960s to this present time. It was the central location where African American residents of lower Plaquemines Parish recuperated together after Hurricane Katrina, providing disaster recovery information, quality meals,cleaning facilities, and nightly films. Just across the highway from the Hall was the second largest FEMA trailer park in Plaquemines Parish.
In the desire and need to develop a sense of community unity for the residents of the community and the FEMA Park, the St. Paul Hall became the central information gathering and meeting place for the local government agencies along with the Long Term Recovery Non-Profit agencies who operated under the leadership of The Committee for Plaquemines Recovery (CPR). The family picnics and movie nights galvanized the community by affording a social opportunity for the park families to come out of the park and join in with the community. The movies and refreshments were supplied by the St. Paul Benevolent Association along with the support of other local agencies and friends.
An EnVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE Action Center
Another important chapter in St. Paul Hall’s recent history came with the founding of Oakville Community Action Group in 1991, precipitated by the unpermitted opening of the commercial Industrial Pipe landfill on the footprint of an old informal parish dump site. In the hall, community members critiqued the Louisiana state government for failing to evaluate potential harms that their community might face due to air pollution from Industrial Pipe and to strategize their public campaign to close the landfill. Rooted firmly in longstanding connections and community traditions, the organization preceded its self-definition as such. This is reflected in a 1995 news report that Oakville “is home to about 130 children, three churches, and a group of experienced political activists well-versed on environmental issues.” Many villagers were intimately familiar with political organizing, mutual aid, and collective action, and were ready to spring into action when the time came to fight the landfill. By 2000, dozens of residents would be deeply involved with Oakville Community Action Group and would secure some major victories in slowing and mitigating—though not outright stopping—Industrial Pipe.
