The New Orleans school desegregation crisis was a period of intense public resistance in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

following the 1954

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

ruling in ''

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...

'' that racial segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. The conflict peaked in 1960, when U.S. Circuit Judge J. Skelly Wright ordered that desegregation in New Orleans begin on November 14 of that year. On November 14, 1960, two New Orleans elementary schools began desegregation. Leona Tate, Tessie Provost, and Gail Etienne, who became known as the

McDonogh Three The McDonogh Three is a nickname for the three girls who desegregated McDonogh 19 Elementary School, in New Orleans.McDonogh 19 Elementary School, while

Ruby Bridges Ruby Nell Bridges Hall (born September 8, 1954) is an American civil rights activist. She was the first African-American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegreg ...

joined William Frantz Elementary School. All four 6-year-old girls were met with death threats, racial slurs, and taunts. Widespread boycotts began immediately, and by the end of the day, few white children remained at either school. On November 16, a race riot broke out in front of a meeting of the

Orleans Parish School Board The Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) governs the public school system that serves New Orleans, Louisiana. It includes the entirety of Orleans Parish, coterminous with New Orleans. The OPSB directly administers 6 schools and has granted charte ...

. Following the riot,

United States Marshals The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The USMS is a Government agency, bureau within the United States Department of Justice, U.S. Depa ...

began accompanying the four girls to their respective schools, while death threats against the children continued. During the next few days, other white parents began returning their children to school. It took ten more years for the New Orleans public schools to fully integrate. In September 1962, the Catholic schools of Orleans Parish were also integrated.

Background

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

was no stranger to equal access issues in schooling. In the post-

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

Era, New Orleans was working toward equal access to education for all citizens. In 1868,

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

ratified a new

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

that added language to include “Black Men” in the understanding of “all men created” equal. The state constitution included Article 135, which required Louisiana to provide free public education to all students. It also outlawed racially-segregated schools. The

Compromise of 1877 The Compromise of 1877, also known as the Wormley Agreement or the Bargain of 1877, was an unwritten deal, informally arranged among members of the United States Congress, to settle the intensely disputed 1876 presidential election between Ruth ...

led to the withdrawal of federal troops in Louisiana and returned Democrats to power, erasing the work done to desegregate schools during the

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...

Era. Under the 1896 ''

Plessy v. Ferguson ''Plessy v. Ferguson'', 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in qualit ...

'' Supreme Court ruling, public schools for both white and African American students were required to support "

separate but equal Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law, according to which racial segregation did not necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which nominally guaranteed "equal protecti ...

" school facilities. In New Orleans and the rest of the country, this was not the reality; many black public schools were not held to the same standards as white public schools. Suffering from overcrowded and outdated schools, the black community demanded that the ''Plessy'' ruling be upheld and enforced. Within this community was a man named Mr. Wilbert Aubert. Wilbert Aubert along with Mrs. Leontine Luke called for a meeting of the Ninth Ward Civic and Improvement League held November 6, 1951, at the Macarty School for black students. After years of protesting for equal schools and not having their requests met, the Ninth Ward Civic and Improvement League created an initiative to file a lawsuit against the

(OPSB).Wieder, Alan. Race and education: narrative essays, oral histories, and documentary photography. New York: Peter Lang, 1997. Aubert took action against the OPSB with the aid of A. P. Tureaud, the chief legal counsel of the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...

(NAACP). In ''Rosana Aubert v. Orleans Parish School Board'', they sought better conditions within the African American schools. After two years of waiting on a decision, U.S. District Judge Herbert William Christenberry allowed the case to proceed. It was at this time that the NAACP wanted to take further action and tackle segregation as a whole. On September 5, 1952, Tureaud filed a new suit, ''Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board'', with 21 sets of students as plaintiffs including Earl Benjamin Bush. The case called into question whether segregation was constitutional and, if so, called for equal and fair conditions in African American schools. It was the 1954 Kansas case, ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', however, that called for nationwide desegregation of all public schools. Following the original ''Brown'' decision, the Supreme Court in ''Brown II'' (1955) called for integration to take place with "all deliberate speed"—a phrase interpreted differently by each side. Supporters of desegregation thought that it meant schools should be desegregated immediately, but opponents of desegregation believed that leniency was allowed in the timeframe for desegregation. Despite progressive feelings in New Orleans on desegregating the city, feelings toward the school system took a different turn. After ''Brown'', only five African-American students, all of whom were female, transferred. Despite Judge J. Skelly Wright's ruling on February 15, 1956, ordering the OPSB to create an integration plan for all public schools, Senator

William M. Rainach William Monroe Rainach Sr. (July 31, 1913 – January 26, 1978) was an American segregationist politician and businessman. A Democrat, he was a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives and the State Senate. Early life William Odom was bo ...

and the Louisiana State Legislature ordered all public schools to maintain segregation laws. The legislature also passed a bill allowing them to declare public schools as either white or colored. Fighting along with the Louisiana State Legislature against integration was the OPSB and board member Emile Wagner. Gerald Rault, assisted by Judge

Leander Perez Leander Henry Perez Sr. (July 16, 1891 – March 19, 1969) was the Democratic political boss of Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes in southeastern Louisiana during the middle third of the 20th century. Officially, he served as a district ...

, was the legal counsel in the case against the integration of public schools. Making it all the way to the Supreme Court, Rault and Perez's case was dismissed and Wright's ruling was upheld. The state legislature continued to ignore the integration order, and the NAACP demanded that Judge Wright enforce his ruling. In response to the state legislature's resistance and the NAACP's request, Judge Wright gave on July 15, 1959, a deadline of March 1, 1960, to the OPSB, the date that it would be required to integrate public schools. Judge Wright took action and created his own plan when the school board failed to meet the March 1 deadline as well as the extended deadline of March 16. The deadline for Judge Wright's desegregation plan was September 1960 when all public schools opened for the year. His plan allowed children to transfer schools and for their parents to choose any of the former white or black schools closest to their homes. White racial separatists raged over Wright's decision, but organizations such as Save Our Schools and the Committee for Public Education called for the integration plan to be pushed forward. The plan would apply only to the first grade, which carried the highest percentage of black students. Once again, Wright made an agreement with the legislature to delay the plan until November 14. The board was convinced that if it delayed the plan until after the start of the school year, the students would not transfer after they were already comfortable at the school that they were attending. The delay would also allow enough time for the board and the legislature to create a plan that would create a law allowing them to decide where a child could and could not attend school. When it came time to allow students to apply to transfer schools, the school board made it as difficult as possible. With very specific criteria such as availability of transportation and intelligence testing, it was almost impossible for black students to transfer schools. That proved to be true when only five black girls fit the criteria for transferring. To delay the integration of the schools even further, Superintendent James F. Redmond ordered the principals of the two integrated public schools to close their schools Monday, November 14. That would give Governor

Jimmie Davis James Houston Davis (September 11, 1899 – November 5, 2000) was an American politician, singer and songwriter of both sacred and popular songs. Davis was elected for two nonconsecutive terms from 1944 to 1948 and from 1960 to 1964 as the ...

and the legislature time to propose 30 bills that would make integration illegal even though Wright had already declared most of them unconstitutional. Less than 24 hours later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled all 30 bills unconstitutional. On November 14, the school system had officially been desegregated.

Desegregation

The New Orleans school district integrated William Frantz Elementary School and Mcdonogh Elementary on November 14, 1960. This was met with outrage. The public held the opinion that an uptown school would be used because children in the uptown schools had wealthier parents that could afford to enroll their children in a segregated school. Instead, desegregation happened in significantly more impoverished schools in the Lower Ninth Ward. Five girls were selected to attend white schools but of the five only four decided to transfer: Leona Tate, Tessie Prevost, and Gaile Etienne attended Mcdonough No. 19 while Ruby Bridges attended William Frantz Elementary. The girls were escorted to and from school by U.S. Marshalls. They were met by a large crowd of angry protestors. As word spread that Mcdonough No. 19 and William Frantz were the schools that would be chosen for integration, more people joined the protest. Concerned white parents began picking up their children. A group formed and began chanting "segregation forever". They also cheered for every white student who left school that day. Soon a group known as "The Cheerleaders" formed. They were a group of mostly middle-class housewives, outraged by the schools' desegregation. Leander Perez, a popular white supremacist leader held a meeting which 5,000 people attended. The day after Perez's meeting hundreds of teenagers gathered at the school board office and dispersed after the police arrived in riot gear. Reporters flocked to the city to report on the civil unrest. The protesters yelling at the six-year-old girls made the city look undesirable to many people. So much, that many people wrote to the mayor at the time. Mayor Morrison soon asked reporters to leave but did not address the protests. Soon the rioting died down and the school year continued. The residents of New Orleans realized that it made them look bad and changed their behavior. Many white families moved to the St. Bernard Parish and between 1960 and 1970, the white population fell in the Lower Ninth Ward by 77 percent. In total 194 people were arrested for loitering, 27 for vandalism, and 29 for carrying a concealed weapon. Stabbing and gas bombing incidents happened throughout the city and a large fight between groups of black and white people broke out. Several Louisiana officials flew to Florida to meet with

President-elect An ''officer-elect'' is a person who has been elected to a position but has not yet been installed. Notably, a president who has been elected but not yet installed would be referred to as a ''president-elect'' (e.g. president-elect of the Unit ...

John F. Kennedy with the intention to seek his opinion on the situation. They claimed that federally prohibiting state interference against the state's will was wrong. Kennedy designated Clark Clifford to meet the group. He said it was inappropriate for Kennedy to talk about such matters; but after the meeting Clifford telephoned Christian Faser, who he had just met with, claiming that Kennedy agreed.

Aftermath

In years following the New Orleans School Crisis of 1960, the city quickly tried to forget one of the most tumultuous parts of its history. The young African American girls who were chosen to be the first to integrate the New Orleans public schools "were largely forgotten" and while memories may fade, there remains a deep division of demographics in contemporary private and public schools in New Orleans. Two decades following the crisis, white enrollment fell by almost half as middle- and upper-class white and black families began to send their children to private institutions.New Orleans Public Schools History: A Brief Overview. Rep. The Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives, 2007. Web. April 30, 2014. A relatively steady decrease in white enrollment in private schools and a slight increase in African American enrollment at public schools continued so that by the 2004–2005 school year (the year before

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...

), 94 percent of New Orleans public school students were from lower-income, African American families who could not afford to send their children to private schools. Among these schools, two-thirds of them were rated "Academically Unacceptable" according to Louisiana's accountability standards. Some progress to improve the quality of education in New Orleans has been made since the crisis and Hurricane Katrina: test scores have improved, new charter schools are opening, and facilities are being upgraded. One thing that remains the same, however, is that although the city's population is about 40 percent white, the student bodies at public and charter schools are overwhelmingly African American.Abramson, Larry. "Parents Push For Diversity In New Orleans' Schools." All Things Considered. National Public Radio. New Orleans, Louisiana, August 30, 2010. Npr.org. Web. April 30, 2014. Conversely, New Orleans has one of the highest percentages of children enrolled in private schools within Louisiana and the United States. Some attribute this growth to the "strong relationship between Catholic and independent schools," however, another possible explanation could be the public's apprehension towards public schools in general. Whether or not this is an issue of race, the trends in demographics between public, charter and private schools are clear: public and charter schools, with highly concentrated African American populations, suffer from underfunding of hurricane-damaged facilities, faculties, and staffs, and educational resources whereas private schools, with highly concentrated white populations, benefit from private funding.The State of Public Education in New Orleans: 2013 Report. Publication. New Orleans: Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives, 2013. Print. It is predicted that if achievement levels continue to rise, white students will begin to return to public schools to help create more diverse student bodies at public and charter school systems but only time will tell. Although there are no legal requirements that schools integrate, there are legal requirements that they improve.

References

External links

*{{cite web, last=Douglas, first=Davison M., title=Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board and the Desegregation of New Orleans Schools, url=https://www.fjc.gov/history/cases/famous-federal-trials/bush-v-orleans-parish-school-board-desegregation-new-orleans, publisher=

Federal Judicial Center The Federal Judicial Center is the education and research agency of the United States federal courts. It was established by in 1967, at the recommendation of the Judicial Conference of the United States. According to , the main areas of respo ...

, access-date=November 12, 2022 1960 in Louisiana 1960 protests Civil rights movement Education in New Orleans November 1960 events in the United States School segregation in the United States

Background

Desegregation

Aftermath

See also

References

Further reading

External links