Shreveport honors 109 year old resident with parade

A parade for Elvira Helaire-Davis rolled down 5th Street in the MLK neighborhood last Saturday morning as Marshal James Jefferson stopped at a house with dozens of roses and a ‘Happy Birthday’ balloon. He was one of many, including former councilman Willie Bradford and State Rep. Joy Walters, who wanted to wish Helaire-Davis a happy 109th birthday.

Among the crowd, were some of her 14 children and many of her grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. “It's amazing,” said granddaughter Juanita Tookes, “She's the matriarch of our family.”

Another granddaughter, Deborah Monroe, came in from Texas to help celebrate the day, “She's blessed beyond her years, and we love it.”

In the parade was her grandson, Yokota Strong, throwing candy out to the crowd. He considers his grandmother as a sweet woman who helped raise all the different generations of children in her family. She gave them invaluable advice that they used to help direct their lives.

As a child, Strong was described as a boy with an ‘old soul’ and always felt a need to learn about their family history. He listened intently to his grandmother’s stories and realized the importance that they held.

Helaire-Davis was born on the Oakland Plantation on July 21, 1915, to the sharecropper parents Felix Helaire and Martha Hamilton.

Oakland Plantation was founded by the Prud’homme family, who owned the plantation from the early 1800s until 1865, near the Cane River in Natchitoches Parish. Today it operates as a national park that is open to the public.

The park’s website acknowledges the importance of enslaved people in the plantation’s growth. In recent years, efforts have been made to record and preserve their history including two surviving cabins, built around 1860. It’s one-room cabins like these where the Helaire family can trace their lineage.

Long past the 109 years of Helaire-Davis's life, these cabins have withstood the milestones that have impacted both the plantation and the world. Within the walls, they have held the generations that have lived through both World Wars, the Great Depression and even The Civil War, when they were not just cabins, but were slave cabins.

Helaire-Davis’ great-grandparents were Richard Dick Waller and Sarah Jane Johnson, who were both enslaved on the plantation. Sarah's mother, Charlotte Johnson was born in 1808 in Washington, DC. “I was not shocked that they were born into slavery,” said Strong, but he was surprised to learn she was from Washington, “It left me with more questions on the circumstances of how they came to Natchitoches, Louisiana.”

The more he learned the more he wanted to know. “I felt more compelled to learn and tell their stories so that I can give them a sense of dignity - that they were denied their entire lives.”

Through a DNA test, performed by African Ancestry, he learned that the Johnson’s DNA originated from the Temne tribe of Sierra Leone, Africa.

Strong decided to participate in the African Ancestry Family Reunion travel trip to Sierra Leone. He ordered a special outfit, with the colors of Sierra Leone, to wear when he met the trib.

“It was an incredible experience,” Strong recalled. Sierra Leone was not like the ‘Africa’ he had seen on TV, one filled with poverty and hunger. Instead, it was a beautiful land with the ocean and mountains. “In a strange way, I felt like I was finally home because of the warm welcome and familiarity I felt among the Sierra Leonean people.”

“It was not lost on me that I was there on behalf of my maternal ancestor who was stolen from her homeland,” said Strong. It was also not lost on his ancestral Temne Village in Sierra Leone. He received a Temne name, “Pa Kapri O’loya” (He who resolves conflicts) and was made a Chief of the Village.

Wearing his special shirt he posed for photos with the tribe. “I felt a monumental sense of relief, celebration and tears of joy to finally be able to ‘return’ to my family's ancestral home after centuries of forced separation,” said Strong.

Back in Shreveport, during that recent parade where he was throwing candy, he wore the same shirt. A few feet away, watching all the excitement around her, was Helaire-Davis.

For Strong his grandmother is the welcoming, calm spirit in his life, “In honor of my grandmother, for her birthday, we felt like it would be a special opportunity to have as much of her family come, to parade in front of the street that has been dedicated to her, that she's lived on for so many decades, we think that this will be a great, great honor for her.”

This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: Shreveport honors 109 year old resident with parade