Bringing La Crosse Black history to life: Darrell Ferguson

March 19, 2024

By La Crosse Community Foundation

Children’s books to capture La Crosse Black history stories

Since 2018, the Enduring Families Project, founded by Denise Christy Moss and Rebecca Mormann-Krieger, has worked to build a more cohesive multicultural community by bringing to life the stories of African Americans in the early days of La Crosse, Wisconsin.

The Enduring Families Project performs monologues for schools and other organizations to provide a venue and catalyst for community discussions and opportunities to build understanding. All the actors are African Americans living and working locally — including Darrell Ferguson. Ferguson works as the employment navigator for Goodwill NCW, and he performs as George Edwin Taylor, the first African American to run for U.S. president after being nominated by the National Negro Liberty Party. This year, he adds children’s book author to his list of roles.

What is Enduring Families Project: Children’s Stories?

We’re creating children’s books highlighting significant Black figures in La Crosse history — the same ones we portray. My book, “A Long Way to Find Home: The Story of George Edwin Taylor,” focuses on his life as a child and will be the first of several sharing untold stories of Black people in our local history.

It’s a tale not many know about, but that’s important for our kids to hear. We have two versions of the book: a coloring book for the younger kids in kindergarten to first grade and an interactive one for the second to fourth graders, complete with QR codes for a more engaging experience. It’s all about introducing young minds to diverse historical figures and helping them see themselves in our area’s history.

How does the Enduring Families Project foster inclusion and bond our community?

While we’re known for telling stories, the Enduring Families Project is about bringing people together. It isn’t confined to the Black community alone; it encompasses the entire spectrum of our society. By sharing the stories of African American early settlers in La Crosse, we offer a more complete picture of our community’s history and, through those stories, bridge gaps and create a sense of interconnectedness.

The Enduring Families Project has also added the “August Ball” to its cast of events. This was a major event in the 19th century to showcase young individuals with high aspirations in education, careers, and life. They were groomed in all areas to become well-rounded individuals, equally knowledgeable in the arts and sciences. Now, we partner with other organizations to produce the event each summer in La Crosse.

It’s successfully built social capital among those involved in the project — we really are “family” — and with our audiences, the organizations we partner with and the greater community. My personal philosophy is to engage with people at all levels so we can learn from each other, understand each other better, and make sure no one’s left out.

What are some of your favorite third places, and how do they foster your connections?

One of my favorites is The Nature Place. They work with kids from different backgrounds and cultural communities and take learning outside the classroom; they make nature part of their lives growing up, integrating these experiences with their learning.

Through my other third places, like Juneteenth, August Ball, and the Enduring Families Project, I’ve been able to connect with several others in the community who now relate to my work at Goodwill. For example, I’m working with Habitat for Humanity to provide soft skills training to complement the physical skills training they provide.

I will engage people at whatever level they would like because we can learn from each other. And that’s my impetus for working with community partners, as I call them: those organizations and spaces that I did not see or have growing up in Chicago. Not that they weren’t there. But there wasn’t that shared experience of community because it was so isolated in pockets: German Town, Korea Town, Greek Town, Little Italy.

Now, in La Crosse, I get to help remove silos like those by uncovering stories like George Edwin Taylor’s and Nathan Smith’s, which even locals often don’t know. They know Nathan’s Hill between Onalaska and West Salem, and they know it’s named after a Black man who escaped slavery, but not much more after that. The Enduring Families Project is about making history known and relevant to the community and, in doing so, building connections.

Reprinted with permission from the La Crosse Tribune.