Firm donates to museum featuring black artists

Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2002 | 9:37 a.m.

BILOXI, Miss. -- The parent company of Grand Casino has donated $250,000 to the new Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art for a gallery that will feature the work and accomplishments of black artists.

"We want to highlight all the interesting and innovative artistic things that black people brought to Mississippi and so much of our history ignores what African-Americans have contributed," said Jerry O'Keefe, a patron of the arts and Biloxi's former mayor.

Park Place Entertainment Corp. of Las Vegas donated the money, which will also pay for artists to visit local schools.

The Pleasant Read House, a house built by a freed slave, will sit next door to African American Gallery. The group that saved the home says the addition of the gallery will help the museum reflect black culture.

"It will allow people to learn more about the accomplishments of African-Americans along the Gulf Coast," said Dora Faison, a representative of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

The groundbreaking for the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum is scheduled for late March. Museum officials said they have raised more than $11 million.

They say the other almost $9 million needed will be raised as the museum is built.