BATON ROUGE - Inside Southern University's Historic District, the Archives Building, better known as the Little White House is undergoing repairs as part of the preservation process.

The official name of the building is the Kernan Plantation House and it dates back to 1840. Over the decades, it has seen use as the University President's home, a girl's dormitory and an infirmary.

Dr. Leon Tarver serves as University President Emeritus, he is also an alumnus of Southern and a former president of the university. He led efforts to establish the Southern University National Historic District. Documents from the National Register of Historic Places certified the district in 1999.

Along with the Archives Building, the National Register said the district included Riverside Hall, the Industrial Building for Girls, the Machine Shop, the Industrial Building for Boys, the President's Home and the Martin Harvey Auditorium.
Many of these buildings still stand, but now serve different purposes. For example, the Martin Harvey Auditorium now holds the Southern University Museum of Art.

"This is Martin Harvey Hall, it's been converted into a museum. It's been many things. You've had basketball games here, you've had movies here, dances here, funerals here, weddings here, graduations, by the time I got here, it was a vacant building," Tarver said.

Next door to the museum is the Leon R. Tarver II Cultural and Heritage Center, a new building within the Historic District.
Bordering the district, the graves of the university's founders, the first President Joseph F. Clark, his wife Octavia Clark, and his son F.G. Clark who was the university's second president.

"The clarks had influence not only across the state, but across the nation," Tarver said.

Next to the Founders' Graves, the Red Stick Sculpture, a monument recognizing the Native American tribes who first dwelled on the land known as Baton Rouge, created by former Southern University Professor Frank Hayden.
The district hugged by the Mississippi River on one side.

"More than commerce, during the years of slavery, transported many people who were enslaved up and down this river. This site was once a slave plantation," Tarver said. "I think it's rather fortuitous that a former slave plantation now becomes a citadel of learning for many of the descendants of those enslaved people which would include members of my family."

Throughout the district, signs and markers, remembering those who walked before to make Southern University what it is today.

"It illuminates the greater pieces of life that often get left in the darkness. He was forward thinking, he explored new ideas," Tarver said.