Confederate Museum in New Orleans Loses Round In Court
By Ed Ballam
September 2002

NEW ORLEANS — The Confederate Museum lost a round in its war with the University of New Orleans (UNO) to keep the brick building that has housed its collection of Confederate artifacts for 111 years.

Museum officials, however, have it has filed an appeal of the Civil District Court decision and vowed keep the collection in the building, open to the public, for as long as they can.

If they do not prevail on the appeal, museum officials say there are alternative plans to preserve and display what is considered the world’s second largest Confederate collection. The Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond has the largest collection.

The Confederate Memorial Hall museum contains many personal items once belonging to Jefferson Davis and also has the uniforms of Braxton Bragg, Albert Blanchard, Franklin Gardner and others.

In late July, Judge C. Hunter King ruled that the operators of the museum don’t own the building and the university can evict them to make way for a huge new art museum it is building on three sides of the museum, which is located at 929 Camp St.

Attorney James Carriere, vice president of the Memorial Hall Foundation, the group that owns and operates the Confederate Museum, said in a telephone interview that the foundation filed an appeal with the 4th District Circuit Court of Appeals and was able to post a $5,000 appeals bond.

The bond stays any eviction action the university might make while the issues of the appeal are untangled. Carriere said it could take up to a year for the appeals court to hear the case and render a decision.

According to an article published by The Times-Picayune, Judge King listened to more than 90 minutes of arguments, then sided with UNO on every count, ruling that the university did in fact own the Confederate building and the museum did not hold the title.

In his motion to grant summary judgment for the university, King said the museum operators “will have to find a new home for their collection.”

The case revolved around complicated legal issues involving records and agreements dating back more than 100 years.

Museum official maintained that the man who built the building made a gift of it to an organization preceding Memorial Hall. Barring that argument, the museum argued that they had squatter’s rights because they had “adverse possession” of the building.

The law states that if an organization or a person can prove 30 years of uninterrupted, undisturbed occupancy of a building, including maintaining the property, the ownership falls to the entity that’s occupying the building at the peril of others that may make claim to the building.
The museum asserted it had occupied the building and acted as an owner since at least 1932, far more than the 30 years required, and may have been able to prove rights to the building for its entire 111-year history.

In his ruling, Judge King said that even if Frank Howard, the New Orleans businessman and philanthropist who built the museum, had wanted to give the building to the Louisiana Historical Society, and indicated his intention in a speech made in 1891, he did not do so explicitly. Therefore, the museum’s argument that they had evolved from the original historical society does not hold up.

In terms of the “squatter’s rights” issue, the judge said the museum had renounced rights to that in a 1996 letter from the organization’s president which acknowledged that another organization, the Howard Memorial Library Association, actually held clear title to the building and the museum merely had the right to use it.

UNO has maintained that it bought the museum building when it bought the Howard Library, a position the judge upheld.

Carriere said filing the appeal is a wise decision because all the heavy legal work was done in preparation for the court battle in July.

“The appellant process is not as expensive,” Carriere said. “All the creative thinking, the legal research and thought has been done.”

Nevertheless, the museum has spent more than $150,000 in legal fees and “the outflow of expenditures is not keeping pace with the income.”

Although the museum and the Memorial Hall Foundation are not in dire financial conditions at the moment, thanks in large part to donations and significant contributions to the legal fund, Carriere said that if the legal fighting becomes protracted, the museum could be in “serious financial trouble.”

Carriere and Patricia Ricci, the acting director and curator, who has worked for the museum for 22 years, say they remain hopeful the collection can remain where it has been for the last century, but both acknowledge moving is a possibility.

“We have had many offers to move the collection,” Ricci said, noting one of the most important things to have the artifacts remain in Louisiana.

Another important issue for Ricci is the collection remain intact and not broken up. Ricci said UNO would be interested in parts of the collection, but not the flags, uniforms, weapons and artifacts.

“They want the artwork, that’s all,” she said.

Carriere said that “unfettered public access by a sufficient number of people” would be an important aspect to a new site. Museum officials will not keep the collection locked up in a warehouse just to keep it in Louisiana.

“We need to have it out and open to the public,” Carriere said, noting that admissions fees are what keep the museum afloat. “If we can’t put those two requirements together, we may have to look outside Louisiana.”

The museum is accepting donations not only for the legal fund, but also for preservation and conservation of its flags and artifacts.

“We always have some sort of project going on so we can always use the money,” Carriere said.

Tax-deductible contributions may be sent to The Confederate Museum, 929 Camp St., New Orleans, LA 70130. Visa and MasterCard are welcomed. For information call the museum at (504) 523-4522.