A civil rights icon’s childhood home will not be a museum after opposition from her descendants

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By Jack Brook | The Associated PressSimone Haley, granddaughter of Oretha Castle Haley, challenges Laketa Smith, seated with Candice Henderson-Chandler, after speaking during a city council hearing regarding the dispute over her grandmother’s former home and plans by the property owner, Henderson-Chandler, to create a museum, in New Orleans, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)NEW ORLEANS (AP) — After Candice Henderson-Chandler moved to New Orleans and bought her first house in 2021, she learned it had played a key role in the city’s civil rights history and was the childhood home of a prominent activist, Oretha Castle Haley. Henderson-Chandler, who is Black, soon founded a nonprofit and planned to convert part of the property into a museum to celebrate this history.She also listed the property on the rental site Airbnb marketing its civil rights legacy and sold museum memberships and civil rights-era themed products like “Freedom Fighter” citrus candles on her nonprofit’s website.But on Thursday, the majority of the New Orleans City Council rejected Henderson-Chandler’s plans in a vote that would have changed the zoning to allow for a museum. Opponents of the museum warned it was yet another attempt by outside interests to commodify and profit from the...

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