Dr. Joy Banner And Jo Banner Of The Descendants Project Named “Forces For Change

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In the last year, The Descendants Project successfully blocked, after a three-year legal and public relations fight, what would have been one of the world's largest grain terminals from going into their rural community. The organization also separately acquired and preserved the nearby Woodland Plantation—the site in 1811 of the largest slave rebellion in American history.

The Banners, who are directly descended from enslaved people who worked in nearby plantations, have also campaigned for the National Park Service to designate an 11-mile stretch in St. John the Baptist Parish as a National Historic Landmark and advocated on the global and national stage for stronger regulation of petrochemical companies.

The Descendants Project was formed by sisters Dr. Joy Banner and Jo Banner of Wallace, La., to preserve and protect the health, land and lives of the Black descendant community in Louisiana's River Parishes. It is a 501c3 nonprofit organization established to support descendant communities in river parishes working together to dismantle the legacies of slavery and to achieve a healed and liberated future.