Bayou History Center

“STUDYING YESTERDAY TO UNDERSTAND TODAY AND IMPROVE TOMORROW” 

 Bayou History Center, Inc. is a 501c3 nonprofit based in Thibodaux, Lafourche Parish, Louisiana.   We are dedicated to teaching, collecting, researching and preserving family and community histories, and studying these histories to learn to recognize generational patterns, both positive and negative, then using that knowledge to work for more just, healthy and resilient families and communities.

Most of our work is centered in coastal southeastern Louisiana, particularly in the parishes of Lafourche, Terrebonne and Assumption.  We also strive to increase awareness and education of histories related to minority and/or socially vulnerable populations of the coast.

Projects and services we are undertaking include:

• Family history research
• Community history research
• Teaching family and community history research
• African-American and slave research
• Writing family histories for individual families
• Writing articles on issues of interest for publication
• Public presentations
• Heritage Tours of coastal Louisiana
• Enviro-History Tours of coastal Louisiana
• “Slaves of the Bayou Country” Project:   A Compendium of information related to people held in slavery in the Bayou Region, with an attempt to assemble these people into family units.
• Oral History Interviews and Transcripts