LEH honors New Orleanians with Bright Lights awards
18th March 2024 · 0 Comments
By Mason Harrison
Contributing Writer
Four New Orleanians are among a group of honorees to be feted at the annual Bright Lights Awards Dinner hosted by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities to be held in downtown Baton Rouge on April 23.
Creatives Gordon H. “Nick” Mueller, Jane Wolfe, Ben Depp, Freddi Williams Evans and the organizers of an exhibition featuring the Creole-inspired work of artist Andrew LaMar Hopkins will be presented with the organization’s Humanities Awards for their contributions to the field at the Capitol Park Museum.
“It’s our only big party of the year,” said Lauren Noel, director of sales and marketing for LEH. Musician Dickie Landry will receive the group’s highest honor, Humanist of the Year, and will perform at the event. Prior to dinner, cellist Helen Gillet will provide musical accompaniment during the patron party. “We want to shine the light on each award winner and thank them for their contributions to our culture.”
Williams Evans is an internationally recognized scholar on the African rootedness of New Orleans and the importance of Congo Square to the history and contemporary nature of Black life in the city. Her book, “Congo Square: African Roots in New Orleans,” inspired the City Council in 2011 to restore the name of what had been called Beauregard Square since 1893 in honor of P.G.T. Beauregard, a rebel general.
She also co-chaired the local Committee to Erect Historic Markers on the Slave Trade to Louisiana and helped erect a United Nations marker memorializing the city’s role in the trafficking of enslaved persons.
She will receive a lifetime achievement award from LEH.
“I am humbled and deeply grateful to receive the 2024 Lifetime Contribution to the Humanities award,” said Williams Evans, in a statement. “It recognizes and honors the passion and perseverance that fuels my work, and the mentors, peers, and supporters who have inspired and encouraged me along the way.”
In 2021, Williams Evans wrote an editorial blasting the administration of Mayor LaToya Cantrell over plans to relocate City Hall to the abandoned Municipal Auditorium, which “sits on the doorstep of Congo Square,” she wrote. Her advocacy, along with thousands of other residents, helped to shelve the project.
The award, she added, “affirms that my work is important, impactful and appreciated.”
Self-taught artist Andrew LaMar Hopkins, a Mobile, Ala., native and one-time Tremé resident, began his artistic career as an antiques dealer and volunteer at the Louisiana State Museum. Hopkins specializes in depicting the lives of Creole New Orleans’ upper crust, particularly Creoles of color in the 1820s and 1830s.
An exhibition of his work – “Creole New Orleans, Honey! The Art of Andrew LaMar Hopkins” – was featured at the Cabildo for nearly a year between the autumns of 2022 and 2023. He is the first living Black artist to have a solo show at the historic building in Jackson Square where enslaved Africans were lynched.
“I was pleased beyond words,” said Susan Maclay, interim director of the Louisiana State Museum, referring to her reaction to news that the exhibition would be honored by LEH with its Museum Exhibition of the Year award. “I have been trying for a very long time to put this exhibition together and I am just so glad that all of the work of the curators, collectors and other staff is getting this well-deserved honor.”
The exhibition displayed items from the museum’s collection that were depicted in Hopkins’ artwork.
Maclay shares Hopkins’ desire to highlight the experiences of Creoles of color.
“Creole means different things to different people,” she said, “depending on where you are geographically, such as Louisiana, Cuba or other parts of the Caribbean. But one thing that continues to be overlooked is the history of Creoles of color. This history is being forgotten and there are so many residents of New Orleans who descend from a group of people who have contributed so much to our culture from music, to food, to the architecture that comprises our built environment. I can go on and on.”
Mueller, a military historian and former University of New Orleans employee, is being honored with LEH’s Champion of Culture award for his work as founding president of the National World War II Museum. His 19-year tenure led to an expanded facility and ranking as one of the best museums in the country.
Jane Wolfe is the creator of Eat and Read at Melba’s, a literacy program that has given away more than 20,000 books to patrons at her family restaurant located in the heart of a historic Black community. Wolfe will receive the Light Up for Literacy award in partnership with the state library’s Center for the Book.
Twenty-six percent of locals between the ages of 18 and 64 are categorized as experiencing “low-literacy,” three points higher than the national average, according to demographers at the Data Center.
Ben Depp, a nationally recognized photographer, will receive the award for Documentary Photographer of the Year. Depp is known for capturing images of Louisiana’s changing coastline using a paraglider. His work has been featured in National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine and Scientific American.
Since 1965, the LEH has honored leaders and innovators in the humanities field, from authors and poets to scholars and literary advocates to photographers, filmmakers and patrons of the arts.
Past honorees include author Ernest Gaines (1989); Cherie Harrison-Nelson (2002); Ellis Marsalis (2008); Dr. Norman C. Francis (2008); Michael White (2010); Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun (2013); Leah Chase (2018); Terrance Blanchard (2020); John T. School (posthumously (2021); Dr. Joyce Marie Jackson and Kalamu ya Salaam (2022); L. Kasimu Harris (2022); Ruby Bridges (2022); and Senator Gerald Boudreaux (2023).
This year’s Bright Lights Awards Dinner will take place on April 23.
This article originally published in the March 18, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
