BATON ROUGE - The Baton Rouge African American Museum has so many unique features of African American history, like this sharecropper cabin that Sadie Roberts-Joseph's son says she experienced at one point during her life."She spent her childhood sharecropping, so as a tribute to her, and the histo ry of that, I decided to recreate a sharecropper's cabin in the museum with authentic memorabilia from that time period," Roberts-Joseph, son and museum curator Jason Roberts said.Jason Roberts says his mother created the Baton Rouge African American Museum with a goal of teaching young black kids that people who look like them experienced the struggle in America."She wanted to promote that information, and it started off very small and grew to the Odell S. Williams Now and Then African Museum, and then, before she passed, she changed it to the Baton Rouge African American Museum," he said.Roberts-Joseph was killed in 2019. Her son says that over the last five years, they have been working to bring his mother's vision to life.He says she always envisioned bringing the African American museum closer to downtown."To integrate it into the greater downtown business district, so this is a culmination of that dream. I brought it here, and we flushed it out as best we could," Roberts said.On Juneteenth, the museum doors reopened at its new location."It's been a long time coming, but we knew that this would be coming, because of the passion Sadie Joseph herself had for this African American museum, and then you talking about her children, her daughter, her son, that have that same passion," East Baton Rouge Metro Councilwoman Carolyn Coleman said.The museum will be the first of its kind in the city of Baton Rouge, providing a space for people to learn about everything from the kings and queens of Africa to African American leaders in the city of Baton Rouge."I worked very closely with Ms. Sadie Roberts-Joseph before her passing, and I know that she's very proud. She was very proud of the little shotgun house that she had with all the artifacts and all of the history that she had in there, and they've just brought that over to this facility, and they're going to grow that, and so I'm excited for them. I know she is smiling from heaven."The anticipated hours of operation for the Baton Rouge African American Museum will be Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.Permalink| Comments ...read more read less