Le Musee de f.p.c.

Free people of color, often abbreviated f.p.c., is the term used to refer to Blacks who were born free or manumitted prior to the Civil War. Also referred to as gens de couleur libres, their presence in New Orleans is recorded as early as 1722. Although there were enclaves of free people of color who numbered well over a quarter million residing throughout the United States during the antebellum period, New Orleans and south Louisiana were home to one of the oldest and largest populations of such. On the eve of the Civil War, in New Orleans alone, there resided 18,000 who owned and paid taxes on $15 million of property.

This remarkable community of resilient, resourceful and enterprising people produced artists, artisans, entrepreneurs, educators, physicians, journalists, and countless business owners and professionals prior to the Civil War. And in the midst of Reconstruction, the former free people of color led the entry of Blacks into politics. Perhaps most forgotten is the activists role they played in the Civil Rights Movement as early as 1862 and in the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896.