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On MLK Day, Backstreet Museum takes center stage

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — It’s a museum that’s been on the move. Now, it’s found the right space to tell the story of New Orleans.

WGNO Good Morning New Orleans features reporter Bill Wood is at the Backstreet Cultural Museum.


It’s in a building that’s been a bar and a ballroom. Not long ago, a TV crew came all the way from Japan just to shoot a documentary.

Executive Director Dominique Francis is their tour guide and ours, too, taking us on a trip with pictures captured by her late dad.

Although he died in 2020, she still holds his camera, in her hands and in her heart.

About the photographs, Dominique Francis says, “they’re worth more than a million words, they’re New Orleans culture, history and they’re my dad’s personal photographs.”

The museum was once in a two-car garage on the back streets of the city. That’s how it got its name the Backstreet Cultural Museum. Now, it’s at 1531 St. Philip Street in New Orleans.

It’s the history of New Orleans Black Culture. It’s the history that’s always been there.

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