The Honorable Abe Edward Pierce III Convention Center

Pierce spent four decades in Ouachita Parish schools, teaching biology, chemistry and physics at Richwood High School for about ten years before moving into administration, and he led the youth council of the Monroe NAACP. On the Ouachita Parish Police Jury he became the first Black member and the first Black president, serving 26 years. In 1996 he won a runoff against Republican John Bryant, 51 percent to 49, to succeed Bob Powell as Monroe's first Black mayor. After his death on August 1, 2021, the council voted to name the convention center for him.

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 — 3.1 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 — 5.0 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

• B.D. Robinson Conference Hall — steps away
• W.L. "Jack" Howard Theatre — steps away
• The Monroe Civic Center Arena — steps away
• The Savoy Ballroom — 0.4 mi