New Orleans Jazz Museum®

At the top of Dumaine, just across North Rampart, lies the ground where jazz - and much of American popular music - has its deepest roots.

Congo Square was a gathering place where Africans, most of them enslaved, maintained their music, dance, and cultural traditions across generations. The rhythms sustained there became foundational to New Orleans jazz and are still heard today in second line parades, Mardi Gras Indian music, and the brass bands that play jazz funerals.

The New Orleans City Council voted to restore the name Congo Square in 2011, declaring that jazz is "the only truly indigenous American art form, and arguably its genesis was Congo Square, a true gift to the entire country and world."

Congo Square sits today within Louis Armstrong Park, whose entrance is at North Rampart and St. Ann — one block from the corner of Rampart and Dumaine.