Makaelyn Lavigne does not want to leave.
From her small hometown of Modeste, in Ascension Parish, Lavigne, 20, commutes every week to undergraduate classes in New Orleans. She’d much rather drive over an hour to school than move away from the beloved, predominantly Black community where her family has lived for decades.
She is the fifth generation of her family to live in this white clapboard house in Modeste facing the grassy Mississippi River levee. She sleeps in the same room her grandfather grew up in, shaded by sprawling oak trees, and spends her spare time rescuing dogs with her mom. Her grandmother is legendary environmental justice advocate Sharon Lavigne.
“We take care of each other down here,” Makaelyn Lavigne said on a recent afternoon, as she sat on a bench at the Modeste playground, sugar cane fields stretching away behind her. Her memories are of a community built around families and nature: “My grandpa dug a pond for us when we were younger so we could fish. We go tracking bobcats in the woods. They have eagles that nest across the river.”…