The museum houses artwork, music collections and many other artifacts from New Orleans’ First Family of Art and Culture, The Harrisons, as well as other artists…The late Big Chief Donald Harrison, Sr. (1933 – 1998) is remembered as one of the legends of the tradition known as “Mardi Gras Indians.”

The Backstreet Cultural Museum holds the world’s most comprehensive collection related to New Orleans’ African American community-based masking and processional traditions, including Mardi Gras Indians, jazz funerals, social aid and pleasure clubs, Baby Dolls, and Skull and Bone gangs.