This neighborhood between the river and the railroad preserves historic features tied to the struggles and achievements of Louisiana African Americans. The Rosenwald School building here was moved from a site 15 miles downriver, and the River Road African American Museum uses it to show the importance of education in empowering African Americans freed from sugar and rice plantations along the river. The museum tells stories of life along the river from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, with exhibits on plantation life, the Underground Railroad, and the Reconstruction era, and collections honoring civic leaders, doctors, jazz musicians, and folk artists. The restored cypress Rosenwald School represents one of thousands of rural schools for African American students built in the South between 1917 and 1932 through an initiative led by Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald. True Friends Benevolent Society Hall, built in 1883, housed a fraternal group that provided medical and burial insurance and hosted carnival balls, dances, plays, jam sessions, and performances by Fats Domino and James Brown. Claiborne Williams, born in 1868 and raised on a plantation, made his first violin from a cigar box, became a jazz band leader in Donaldsonville, toured the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and taught musicians including Dave Bartholomew and other local students. Pierre Caliste Landry, who grew up enslaved on a plantation across the river, earned a law degree, served several terms in the Louisiana legislature, and became the first African American mayor of a United States town.