The Black Schoolhouse opened in New Orleans’ Seventh Ward on Saturday, Oct. 10, giving The Black School its first permanent home on the organization’s 10th anniversary. Founders Shani Peters Cuillier and Joseph Cuillier cut the ribbon on the community arts center at 1660 N. Roman Street. Evans Cutchmore Press reported that elected officials, a deputy mayor, former apprentices and board members joined a crowd at the opening. The event marked both the start of a new building and a decade of work built around art as a community tool.
The school began in 2016 in New York and moved to New Orleans in 2021, the post-opening report said. The founders describe its work as teaching art, design and activism. Its new home turns that work into a physical place in the Seventh Ward, where residents can gather and young people can learn skills for creative careers. The official announcement described the building as shaped by the people it is meant to serve, including youth seeking creative pathways, families looking for intergenerational gathering space and elders seeking continuity for cultural traditions.
The Lens reported that the Schoolhouse is about 2,000 square feet and was assembled from five repurposed shipping containers. Before it opened, The Lens described plans for classrooms for digital and hands-on art, a gallery and gathering space, a combined library and meditation room, and an outdoor fruit-tree orchard. Those details point to a center meant to hold several kinds of activity under one roof, while the founders’ public message emphasized that the next use of the space will continue to be shaped with the community.
The apprenticeship is one of the program’s clearest links between art lessons and opportunity. The Lens reported that the six-month program serves young people ages 14 to 24 and that 39 apprentices had completed it by Oct. 1. In its coverage of the opening, Evans Cutchmore Press reported that two graduates spoke about where the work led them. Norman, a 24-year-old former apprentice, said he now works as a graphic designer in New Orleans and Brooklyn. Julia Jackson, now a design mentor with the school, described learning design through the program and moving into the field full time.
The new center also gives former students a way to return as mentors. The Lens profiled D’aliyah Jackson, who completed the apprenticeship in 2023 and later created branding and merchandise for a New York museum anniversary as well as promotional materials for the Schoolhouse opening. At 23, she was pursuing a degree in visual communications and graphic design and planned to mentor the school’s junior design team. Her path shows one way the program can continue beyond a first course: a student can build skills, take on design work and bring experience back to younger participants.
That continuity was visible in the opening itself. The founders were joined by former apprentices and local officials as the project’s first permanent home opened. The School’s anniversary announcement recounts six years of crowdfunding and a capital campaign, community design research, workshops, surveys, events and volunteer efforts, plus almost two years of construction. The Black School’s announcement said the building was made for youth, families, elders and neighbors, and described its goal as building local infrastructure with the community’s input. The Schoolhouse is therefore both a place for instruction and a project whose design grew through consultation.
The founders credited many kinds of support in getting the building finished. At the ribbon cutting, Peters Cuillier spoke about crowdfunding, foundation help and neighborhood builders, the independent report said. The School’s public announcement likewise thanked monthly supporters, legacy-brick contributors, people who participated in fundraising and building events, and those who shared information.
A permanent address can change what a community program is able to offer, but the opening does not make the work finished. Peters Cuillier told the crowd that it would be the community’s role to step in and decide what happens next. The Lens had reported plans for youth programming during the week and multigenerational events on alternating weekends. Those are described as intended uses rather than a completed calendar. For the founders and the young designers who have passed through the apprenticeship, the schoolhouse gives that next chapter a home in the neighborhood that helped shape it.
Reader responses