B.D. Robinson Conference Hall

Robinson was born in 1910 to sharecropper parents in Ouachita Parish. At fourteen he left Monroe for Straight College High School in New Orleans, working as a janitor for room and board. After Dillard University in 1936 and a master's degree from St. Louis University, he taught, and from 1953 to 1974 he was principal of J. S. Clark School. With his wife Emily he founded Robinson Business College in 1944, and a request from him and the Colored Chamber of Commerce led to the Carver Branch Library, which opened in 1949. He died on July 12, 2002.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Masur Museum of Art — 0.9 mi
  A 1929 limestone Tudor house on South Grand Street, built by a Monroe lumberman and given to the city in 1963 by the Masur family to become its art museum.
• Biedenharn Museum and Gardens — 1.8 mi
  The 1913 Monroe home of the man the museum credits with first bottling Coca-Cola, with a Coca-Cola museum, his daughter's Bible collection and her gardens.
• Chennault Aviation and Military Museum — 3.2 mi
  A Monroe museum that began as a 1986 reunion of Selman Field airmen and now holds Flying Tigers displays, Delta's Monroe beginnings and a park of retired aircraft.
• Northeast Louisiana Delta African American Heritage Museum — 5.1 mi
  A museum chartered in 1994 that tells the story of the Black pioneers of Monroe and northeast Louisiana, with local art, quilts and the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail's only Ouachita Parish stop.

More markers nearby

• W.L. "Jack" Howard Theatre — steps away
• The Monroe Civic Center Arena — steps away
• The Honorable Abe Edward Pierce III Convention Center — steps away
• The Savoy Ballroom — 0.3 mi