NEW ORLEANS – During the first weekend of October, the Historic Faubourg Treme Association (HFTA) will host the Treme Festival to benefit the historic St. Augustine Catholic Church, which celebrates 174 years on Sunday, October 4, 2015.
The event will border the church at the corner of Henriette Delille and Gov. Nicholls Streets, and there will be a Patron Party on Friday, October 2 from 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m., and the Festival runs from Saturday, October 4, 12:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m., through Sunday, October 5, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
The association projects a donation of $25,000 from the funds raised from sponsors and vendors to go toward much-needed repairs and improvements of the church.
"St. Augustine Catholic Church is one of the most iconic symbols of the Treme neighborhood with nearly 150 years of history," Adolph Bynum, Sr., an active member of the Historic Faubourg Treme Association and the originator of the Treme benefit festival said. "We wanted to make sure that an event celebrating all our community offers also gives back to those who have helped to define it."
The festival, sponsored by Reily Foods, will feature food, crafts, and musical performances by John Boutte, Kermit Ruffins & the BBQ Swingers, James Andrews and the Crescent City Allstars, Shannon Powell, Leroy Jones Quintet, New Breed Brass Band, Lil Glen and Backatown, and the Treme Brass Band. The festival will also feature a second-line procession led by Roots of Music, the Zulu Connection and the Stilt Walkers and Drummers.
In addition to music and crafts, attendees can also enjoy family friendly events including free health screenings, tours of St. Augustine Church and an arts and crafts children’s tent. The festival will end with a gospel mass at St. Augustine Church on Sunday, October 4 at 10:00 a.m. followed by the Rhodes gospel extravaganza from noon to 4 p.m. featuring the Zion Harmonizers, the Downtown Deanery Gospel Choir, Clark Knighten, Connie and David Fitch and more.
Renowned local artist and Treme native, Terrance Osborne, has designed and donated a limited edition poster that will be available for purchase.
St. Augustine Church has a rich and important history in America. It was dedicated on October 9, 1842. Free people of color bought more pews for their families than any other contributors, and then bought all the pews of both side aisles. The side-aisle pews were given to slaves, who were welcomed to worship there, a first in the history of slavery in America. The mixture of pews resulted in the most integrated congregation in the United States. Free people of color, white people, ethnic people, and slaves regularly attended the church together.
A month after the church was dedicated, Henriette Delille, a free woman of color, and Juliette Gaudin, a Cuban, knelt publicly at the alter and pledged to work for orphan girls, the uneducated, the poor, the sick, and the elderly among free people of color. That was the beginning of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family, the second-oldest African American congregation of religious women in America.
Historical figures Homer Plessy, of the famous U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy vs. Ferguson, and Alexander P. Tureaud, Sr., a giant among the civil rights attorneys of the 1960s were members of St. Augustine Church.
