Basile, Achilles, Congo and many other enslaved people labored on Étienne de Boré’s plantation within today’s Audubon Park. Alongside planting and harvesting sugar cane, enslaved labor on the Boré Plantation included fishing, masonry, woodworking, blacksmithing, and bringing cypress logs from the swamps to cut and use for building. [3] Though these enslaved people cultivated the land that Audubon Park now resides, it is Boré who continues to receive the credit.

Between 1847 and 1875, Charles-Étienne Arthur Gayarré, the grandson of Étienne de Boré, published five books about antebellum Louisiana. Gayarré, with his connections as the Louisiana Secretary of State and reputation as a historian, produced a lengthy, romanticized publication about Étienne de Boré’s sugar development and industry, named “A Louisiana Sugar Plantation of the Old Regime.” [1] Within this text Gayarre dubbed Boré the master of sugar in New Orleans. And the "savior of Louisiana,” stating that Boré’s sugar industry was a "bourgeois epic.” [2] With Gayarré’s political and social influence, his historical writings shaped the public memory of Boré and slavery in Louisiana.

Unwittingly, Gayarré’s work also highlights the work of enslaved people that labored and lived on the Boré Plantation. Although Gayarré drives romanticism into the stories of those enslaved by Boré, this may be the only time the names of the enslaved are mentioned within the historical record.

Among the stories of enslaved people told in “A Louisiana Sugar Plantation of the Old Regime,” is mention of Basile, a “commander” over those enslaved on the Boré Plantation. Gayarré describes Basile as an enslaved man invested with “limited power” and “armed with an enormous whip, at least twenty feet in length.” [3] Gayarré states, however, that Basile did not command with the whip but with words and songs to the enslaved working the sugarcane fields.

Basile was likely a slave driver for the Boré Plantation. Slave drivers were usually enslaved men who worked as an assistant to the white overseers and enslavers. [4] Typically, slave drivers had some power in directing the work happening within the fields. Though experiences differed among enslaved people, some slave drivers used their power as a “go between” to protect the enslaved from punishment from the overseers. [4]

Like Basile, Achilles also worked on the Boré Plantation. Gayarré states that Boré named this enslaved man Achilles for his fiery attitude, implying that this was not his birth name. [4] His story presents a reminder that enslaved people lived within and outside of slavery, creating their own identies, families, and homes while simultaneously subjugated to the violence of slavery.

The last named enslaved person within “A Louisiana Sugar Plantation of the Old Regime” is Congo. Gayarré tells a story of Congo that represented him as a Sambo character, stating that the overseer tasked Congo to pass a note to Boré, who in turn gave it to a portrait of Boré rather than Boré himself. The Sambo character myth, created by Stanley Elkins in his book Slavery: A problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life (1959) describes enslaved people as “docile, infantile, lazy, and irresponsible.” [6] Like Elkins, Gayarré portrays Congo as unintelligent and reliant on enslavers and overseers for direction. [5]

Other historians, such as Deborah Gray White, combat this stereotype by countering the Sambo character with an actor of resistance. Enslaved people would fake illnesses, “misplace” or destroy tools, work slowly, or act unintelligent to create daily acts of resistance. [6]

Though remembered within a white supremist text, each of these enslaved men labored, lived, resisted and cultivated what is now Audubon Park.

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By the early 1900s, the Melpomene neighborhood in Central City was a densely populated urban neighborhood, where many residents worked in occupations related to shipping, particularly in the nearby rail yards. Broadly speaking, the area was home predominantly to working class immigrants of European descent in the period between Reconstruction and the end of the nineteenth century, with the neighborhood gradually becoming a predominantly Black neighborhood in the first decades of the twentieth century. The demographic changes in the neighborhood can be tracked in documentary records like the census and city directories, which provide information at the address level about residents’ race and ethnicity, household composition, occupations, and property ownership.

Larger-scale political events always loomed in the background of neighborhoods with such racially integrated patterns of residence. The period after Reconstruction was a particularly turbulent one, as the city’s Black residents found opportunities for social advancement subverted and blocked. Black voter registration in Louisiana had reached a high of 128,150 by 1888, but white supremacists attacked their rights on all fronts. The 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision legalized segregation, and the new Louisiana Constitution of 1898 distinguished the right of citizenship from the “privilege” of the vote, using this language to disenfranchise Black voters. By the next year, Black voter registration plummeted to just over 12,000; by 1930, there were just over 2,000 Black voters left in the entire state. White supremacists segregated schools and public facilities, attacked biracial labor organizations, and used extralegal violence like lynching to reinforce state-sanctioned oppression.

Archaeological assemblages can only indirectly illustrate such widespread changes, but they do help explore the individual strategies that working class families employed to live and, in some cases, to prosper, even in the face of considerable adversity. They also help us to understand how people experienced such broad changes at an everyday level: in foodways and diet, in health, in childcare, in social interactions, and in recreation, as displayed through consumer behaviors.

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In 2013, archaeological consulting firm Earth Search, Inc., excavated a block of the Melpomene neighborhood originally bounded by South Liberty, Erato, Clio, and Howard/LaSalle Streets. Earth Search identified brick foundations and artifacts from a number of different addresses across this particular block. The most informative materials recovered came from a wood-lined privy shaft located along a property line between two homes at 1220 and 1222-1224 Howard/La Salle Street. Archaeological findings suggest that the privy was filled during the 1930s, presumably representing a cleaning episode linked to a family moving from the house or a change in ownership. Glass bottles and containers, many of them intact, filled the privy along with a smaller collection of ceramic tablewares, personal items, and butchered animal bones.

The 1930 Census recorded a woman named Minnie Puckett as the owner of 1222 Howard Street. The Census described Minnie Puckett as a 49-year-old “Negro” widow, born in Mississippi to parents from Virginia. The Census valued the home, where she resided with her 13-year-old granddaughter, at $4400. Minnie Puckett’s thirty-year-old daughter, Lucille Puckett, rented the other side of the house. Also born in Mississippi, Lucille Puckett lived with her four daughters: Edna (10), Helen (8), Genieve (5), and Minnie (3), named for her grandmother. Minnie Puckett resided at this house until her death, after which the house appears in an advertisement for a property seizure and auction by the Civil Sheriff in 1937. By the time of the 1940 Census, the Puckett family no longer owned 1222 Howard Street. The Pucketts’ departure from the house seems like the sort of life event that caused the filling of the privy.

The archaeological assemblage from the privy gives us a small glimpse of everyday life in the household, and of the hopes and obstacles faced by Black families of this generation. The images below illustrate and describe some of the objects found in the Puckett family privy.

The Puckett family’s story epitomizes the aspirations of Black migrants to New Orleans in the early twentieth century, but it also shows the precarity of their position in a segregated society in which oppressive forces devalued their labor and sabotaged their chances of property ownership. The Pucketts moved to New Orleans from Mississippi by 1920, when both Minnie and Lucille lived at 2605 Calliope Street. Minnie was already widowed and working as a laundress. Lucille’s husband, Eddie Carr, a laborer from Alabama, and Andrew Puckett, Minnie’s son working as a brakeman on the railroad, also resided with Minnie and Lucille on Calliope Street.

It must have taken considerable hard work for the family to purchase the property on Howard Street, particularly after the death of Andrew Puckett in 1920. Legal problems surrounded Andrew’s succession, trapping Lucille in litigation issues until the late 1920s. The loss of the property must have been a devastating blow to Lucille and her family.

Of course, the Puckett family’s dreams didn’t end at the moment in time captured by the archaeological assemblage at 1222 Howard Street. Lucille’s children grew up and had families of their own, eventually moving into the Calliope Housing Project nearby. The story of the house lost at 1222 Howard Street passed through family generations as a lesson in being careful in business and personal affairs, and a warning to not be taken advantage of. Lucille’s family remembers her tough and hard-working character, taking on extra jobs to provide more for her family. She insisted that they shouldn’t be content with their lot and should strive for better. Her daughter inherited some of her tastes for fine china and elegant petticoats, symbols of affluence in a racist society structured to keep them as second-class citizens. Many of Minnie’s descendants still reside in New Orleans and saved photos of Minnie, Andrew, and Lucille that they shared with researchers for this project.

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Between the 1930s and 1960s, racist policies at every level of government pushed Black residents of New Orleans into lower-paying jobs and racially segregated neighborhoods. Throughout the nation, local and federal government agencies used coded terms like urban renewal, racial covenants, and red-lining to describe their efforts to segregate housing and homeownership. These policies limited possibilities for Black residents to achieve independence, financial security, and other opportunities for their families.

Of course, Black New Orleanians worked to resist and counter the effects of structural racism in whatever ways they could. The written historical record gives glimpses of individual families who tried to use homeownership as a foothold on economic security in the Melpomene neighborhood. Segregation in an urban setting also provided avenues for prosperity with the formation of businesses catering to Black customers that white-owned businesses often excluded.

By engaging archaeological artifacts excavated from the Guste Homes site in 2004, alongside the written historical record that documents the lives of families who lived in the Melpomene neighborhood prior to its 1961 demolition, we can gain a deeper understanding of residents’ lives.

For instance, Edward Shannon, first a renter at 1219-1221 Howard/LaSalle Streets, owned the property by 1930 while working as a superintendent for a life insurance company. He later opened a furniture repair business at the same location. Another home at 1216 Freret was owned by a series of railroad porters in the period from 1920-1940, while, in 1926, a Black family of Puerto Rican descent headed by Jose Fuentes purchased a home at 2317 Erato and lived there through 1949.

It is often a mixture of luck and circumstance when a particular household is represented in the archaeological record of a neighborhood, and sometimes it can be very difficult to link material remains with specific families. However, the Puckett family at 1222-1224 Howard/LaSalle can be traced in both documents and in the objects they left behind in a privy shaft, apparently filled when they moved out in the 1930s.

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Today’s Audubon Park was once the location of the Boré Plantation. In the late eighteenth century, Étienne de Boré converted his plantation crop from indigo to sugar cane due to significant financial struggles. This conversion was only made possible by Antoine Morin, a chemist and a free man of color originally from Saint-Domingue. [3]

On the Boré Plantation, Morin innovated a new process that allowed for sugar granulation. This innovation led not only to the increased wealth and status of Étienne de Boré, but also jump-started the Southern Louisiana sugar industry. While the ability to granulate sugar in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries caused an economic boom for plantation owners and the local economy, it came with the aggressive expansion of the slave trade and deadly working conditions for people enslaved on sugar plantations. The domestic slave trade expanded to meet sugar plantation owners increased demand for enslaved labor. The sugar industry directly contributed to the forced relocation of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children from the Upper South to the Lower South, disrupting lives and tearing apart families.

After the introduction of the sugar industry to Louisiana in 1795, New Orleans became a hub for the domestic slave trade. [5] Sugar production in eighteenth century Louisiana was labor-intensive and brutal for enslaved people. Sugarcane grows in tropical climates and requires a full eleven or twelve months to reach maturity. Louisiana differs from other sugar-producing regions in the Caribbean belt, such as Saint Domingue or Jamaica, in that Louisiana experiences annual frosts in the winter months. Facing the possibility of losing their crop to frost, Louisiana enslavers and plantation owners forced enslaved people to work day and night during the harvest months between October and December because of sugarcanes’ short window of harvest. [1] Sugar harvesting proceeded at a furious pace, each day enslaved people worked sixteen to eighteen-hour shifts. [2] Nobody was too young or too old to work. Child labor in sugar production was common, leaving children exposed to boiling kettles, hot furnaces, and machetes. [2]

While harvest season was brutal in its breakneck pace, labor on sugar plantations was difficult for the rest of the year as well. The spring and summer months were not restful, as enslaved people tended to other crops and maintained farm equipment and plantation buildings. Combined with the dangers of harvesting, the furnaces, and mills, environmental factors on sugar plantations also made a dangerous life for enslaved people. While the possibility of disease was a risk all year for enslaved people, the hot and swampy summer months created an increased risk for diseases like malaria, cholera, and yellow fever. [2]

Across the United States, Louisiana sugar plantations were the only plantations where the death rate of enslaved people exceeded the birthrate. The dangers of disease, the violence of the slave trade, and the sugar production’s grueling labor for enslaved people were all exasterbated by Boré’s sugar plantation. [4]

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In 1794, Étienne de Boré (1741-1820) forced enslaved men and women to convert his failing indigo fields into a sugar plantation. [4] This forced labor camp sat across the lower parts of today’s Audubon Park. The plantation history is memorialized through historical markers in the park depicting Étienne de Boré as the man that revolutionized sugar production in Louisiana. These markers leave out historical figures essential to Louisiana's sugar industry.

Beginning in the 1730s, plantations around New Orleans produced mostly tobacco and indigo. [3] But by 1795, sugarcane became an enormous money-making crop around the Caribbean as the demand for sugar escalated in Europe. Beyond its use as a sweetener, people used sugar for food preservation and medicinal purposes. [1]

Because the sugarcane crop grew well in the subtropical environment of Louisiana, Boré aimed to capitalize on what people of the time considered “white gold.” [2] Before 1795, refining sugar cane into granulated sugar on a large scale had not yet been done successfully and was only done in experimentation. [3] To ensure his sugar plantation’s financial success, Boré hired Antoine Morin, a chemist and a free man of color originally from Saint-Domingue. [3] Boré heard of Morin’s engineering success through Antonio Mendez a contemporary of Boré and the owner of the Terreaux-Boeufs Plantation located in St. Bernard Parish. [7] Morin, through his work with the Terreaux-Boeufs Plantation, cultivated a reputation for having the best technical knowledge of sugar production and granulation. [4] According to historian Richard J. Follet, Antoine Morin was “an alumni of distinguished Parisian colleges” and “proved an excellent chemist and botanist who enjoyed considerable fame in New Orleans as the premier sugar maker in the colony.” [4]

Today, historians have little knowledge of Morin’s sugar making process. To begin his sugar industry, Boré purchased sugar cane from Antonio Mendez. In 1795, Boré commissioned Morin as his sugar maker. [5] This commission required Morin to organize the work of enslaved people to build a sugar mill and factory, as well as planting the sugar cane fields. [4] Morin innovated a new sugar-making process and produced the first granulated sugar for commercial sale in Louisiana through the Boré Plantation. [5]

In 1796, Morin and Boré’s first sugar crop yielded twelve-thousand dollars profit, which is worth the equivalent of over three million dollars today. So how did Boré become the memorialized revolutionary of the Southern Louisiana sugar industry? During the nineteenth century, Charles Gayarre, Boré’s grandson, was a writer, historian and the Secretary of State in Louisiana. Gayarre grew up on the Boré plantation and wrote a lengthy, romanticized version of Boré’s sugar development, innovations, and industry. [6] Through Gayarre’s political and social influence and historical writings, Boré’s name lived on as master of sugar in New Orleans, with Gayarre naming Boré as the hero of a "bourgeois epic" and the "savior of Louisiana.” [4]

Gayarre’s works do not include any information on Antoine Morin. It is clear that Antoine Morin and his work as a chemist shaped the Southern Louisiana sugar market. However, popular histories continue to memorialize Étienne de Boré as the sole contributor and maker of the Louisiana sugar boom. Without Antoine Morin or the labor of enslaved people, Boré would not have developed a successful sugar plantation.

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Today, Audubon Park is a space dedicated to leisure in New Orleans. Every day, hundreds of New Orleans tourists and locals enjoy the public jogging path, lagoons, picnic shelters, golf course, playgrounds, and the Audubon Zoo. However, during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the land that is now Audubon Park was the Boré Plantation (lower Audubon Park) and the Foucher Plantation (upper Audubon Park). [1] The Boré and Foucher were “sister” plantations, meaning that the Borés and Fouchers were related by family ties. The Audubon Nature Institute highlights the plantation history of the park with plaques, markers, such as the “de Boré” oak tree, and artifacts like eighteenth-century sugar kettles placed throughout the park. 

From 1776 to 1794, the Boré Plantation produced mostly indigo. [2] After a failed indigo harvest in 1794, Étienne de Boré (1741-1820) ordered enslaved people to convert the fields into a sugarcane plantation in order to avoid financial ruin. [3]

Popular histories often credit Étienne de Boré, an enslaver and the first mayor of New Orleans, with establishing the sugar industry in Southern Louisiana. This historical narrative ignores the grueling and deadly work that the sugar industry required of enslaved people. This tour reframes Boré’s contributions to the sugar industry and centers the work of enslaved and free people of color who made the industry’s growth possible. 

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Shirley Thompson, the youngest of the Thompson sisters,  joined the New Orleans Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Freedom Rides as they tested the Interstate Commerce Commission’s desegregation of bus transit. At eighteen years old, and just a few days after graduating from George Washington Carver High School, Shirley boarded her first Freedom Ride on June 6, 1961, to Jackson, Mississippi. [1]  The previous Freedom Rides into Mississippi were met with violence, an increase in jail penalties from two months to four, and a request from President John F. Kennedy to the Freedom Riders for a “cooling-off period.” However, CORE leaders remained diligent in their protests and continued ahead with their Freedom Rides and sit-ins across Mississippi. [2] Because of CORE members’ vigor and determination to fight white supremacy, police jailed activists for their continued acts of civil disobedience, imprisoning Riders in the Parchman State Penitentiary when local jails exceeded capacity. Police arrested Shirley Thompson for “breach of peace” while attempting a sit-in within a waiting room. Given the increased sentence of four months, police took Shirley to the Parchman State Penitentiary. [3] While there, Shirley stated that “she was slapped by police officers.” [4] CORE activist Abdul Aziz Khaalis documented the brutalities at Parchman State Penitentiary in his diary, later published online as a series entitled Letters to My Children. Khaalis stated: 

"Yes, they took our mattresses from us. We still sang freedom songs. Yes, they took our clothes. Yes, we froze when our bodies touched the steel bunks with the air turned on high. Yes, we were eaten by insects released from jars into the cell block with the air turned off and the windows closed to make it hot like hell as we were bitten and eaten everywhere. Yes, they dragged a screaming white Freedom Rider past our cells. They had a wrist breaker attached to his right arm. It was a handcuff with big screws that hit the nerve points in his wrist. It was attached to a chain with a wooden handle. They dragged him, flipped the chain, making his body flip like a fish from the agony he experienced, and I felt it In my cell and still hear his screams when I have the memory. Yes, they put stuff in our food to give us the runs. Yes, they were devil-mean hateful jailers." [5]  While newspapers reported one piece of Shirley’s testimony from within the walls of Parchman State Penitentiary, Shirley likely faced other violence as well. Jean Thompson posted a bond for her sister and the prison released her. Shirley’s release date is unknown.  Before her death at age 47, Shirley also participated in the 1962 Louisiana Freedom Summer, 1962 Mississippi Freedom Summer, and 1963 March on Washington alongside her sister Alice Marie Thompson. 

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On May 24, 1961, Jean Thompson, at age 19, participated in the Freedom Ride from Montgomery, Alabama to Jackson, Mississippi as civil rights activists tested the Interstate Commerce Commission’s desegregation of bus transit. Jean’s bus was the first to make it safely to its destination in Mississippi. Previously, white groups acted violently to activists and burned Freedom Ride buses. [1] This safe arrival was short-lived. According to the Times-Picayune, city police arrested Jean along with eleven other riders “moments after they alighted from their buses and set foot in a white waiting room at the bus terminal.” [2]  Jean and the other Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Freedom Riders refused to move from the white waiting room after police ordered them to leave. The police then immediately booked the riders on “two counts of refusing to move on when ordered by police and causing a breach of the peace.” [2] The following day, Jean appeared in front of the municipal court led by Judge James L. Spencer. CORE’s attorney advocated for the riders stating that all people have the right to travel. Judge Spencer did not alleviate the penalties and charged Jean and the other riders with the maximum penalty of a $500 fine and up to six months in jail. [2] 

On November 1, 1961, Alice Marie Thompson joined other New Orleans Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) members to test the Interstate Commerce Commission’s new policy of bus desegregation at the New Orleans Trailways bus terminal located on Loyola Avenue. [1] Information regarding the test’s impact on Riders or the New Orleans community has little documentation. However, according to Julia Aaron-Humbles, another New Orleans activist, some locals regularly took care of the New Orleans CORE members, providing housing, food, nurturing, and training to prepare those like Alice for the violence ahead. [2]  On November 14, Alice Marie Thompson and other CORE members tested bus desegregation in Hattiesburg and Poplarville, Mississippi. The police arrested Alice and charged her with a “breach of peace.” [3] The mayor of Poplarville, Pat Hyde, fined Alice Thompson $250.00 and sentenced her to two months in jail. The police released Alice, along with two other activists, Frank Nelson and Patricia Smith, through a paid bond. [4] On November 29, 1961, Alice also joined in the testing of bus desegregation in McComb, Mississippi along with her sister, Jean. While there, a mob of white people attacked Alice and other CORE members, shouting “Kill ‘em! Kill ‘em.” [5] According to the New York Times writer Claude Sitton, Alice and the other CORE members fled the bus terminal, rested for the evening, and then attempted a sit-in at a local cafe after a reported gas leak at the bus terminal. White men attacked the CORE members, kicking and shoving them through the cafe door onto the street. [6]  Though the Freedom Ride to McComb was the last for Alice Thompson, she continued to engage in other civil rights activism including the 1962 Louisiana Freedom Summer, the 1962 Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the 1963 March on Washington, known for Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech.” [7]  

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McDonoghville Cemetery is a burial site of enslaved and formerly enslaved people. This cemetery was once a part of enslaver John McDonogh’s plantation. According to a 1915 interview with Jacob Dinckel, then sexton of the McDonoghville Cemetery, this “‘colored’ graveyard consisted of an army of white wooden headboards quaintly lettered and surmounted by crosses [...] with their feet to the rising sun.” [1] These wooden markers are long-gone and today McDonoghville Cemetery is dominated by marble, granite, copings, and some unmarked mounds. Upon his death in 1850, John McDonogh was buried in the McDonoghville Cemetery and later reinterred in his native Baltimore in 1860. [2] According to Dinckel, after McDonogh’s death, a person formerly enslaved by McDonogh buried Black and white people side by side in the McDonoghville Cemetery. [1]

The history surrounding the ownership and municipal jurisdiction of McDonoghville Cemetery is complicated. In 1890, forty years after McDonogh’s death, the McDonoghville Cemetery came to the attention of Joseph A. Shakspeare, Mayor of New Orleans, when The Daily Picayune reported that a citizens’ group complained that “a colored man claim[ed] to be the owner of the ground.” [3] According to the article, the man caring for the cemetery said that “his father, [...] belonged to McDonogh and the cemetery was left to him,” and that he “... sells lots in the cemetery but can show no title when called upon to produce it.” [3] Mayor Shakspeare subsequently ordered the relocation and racial segregation of the people buried in the cemetery. [1] In 1891, Mayor Shakspeare granted the Jefferson Parish Police Jury use of the cemetery on behalf of the City of New Orleans. [2, 4] Since then, the City of New Orleans has maintained a hands-off approach to the McDonoghville Cemetery, with the rare exception of allotting funds to maintain McDonogh’s tomb. [2]

When McDonogh purchased plantation land on the Westbank of the Mississippi River in the early nineteenth century, the property was considered part of Orleans Parish. In 1825, the Louisiana State Legislature created Jefferson Parish by carving land out of Orleans Parish, this new parish line bisected McDonogh’s plantation. [5] Today, the parish line runs diagonally through McDonoghville Cemetery. [6] When the City of Gretna, located in Jefferson Parish, incorporated in 1913, the portion of McDonoghville Cemetery on the Jefferson side of the parish line was then also within the boundaries of the City of Gretna. John Ehret, then Mayor of Gretna, formed a commission to enable the City of Gretna to take control of McDonoghville Cemetery. [7] A title search referenced by historian G. Leighton Ciravolo “suggests that McDonoghville Cemetery has never been formally conveyed either to the Parish of Jefferson or the City of Gretna.” [2]

In 2016, the Jefferson Parish Historic District sponsored the erection of a state marker recognizing the historical significance of McDonoghville Cemetery. This marker states that John McDonogh created the cemetery and it is the final resting place for “many prominent local families.” Even though historical evidence documents that McDonoghville Cemetery served as a burial site for enslaved and freed people, the marker makes no mention of them. Community members are appealing to the various municipalities and organizations connected to McDonoghville Cemetery to have McDonoghville Cemetery’s historical significance as a burial site of enslaved and freed people formally acknowledged.

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Dorothy Mae Taylor, born on August 10, 1928, is known as “The First Lady of 1300 Perdido Street” due to her years of service in New Orleans City Hall, located at 1300 Perdido Street, from 1986 to 1994. (1) In 1971, Taylor became the first woman of color elected to Louisiana’s House of Representatives and served in the legislature until 1980. (2) Before being elected, Taylor helped desegregate New Orleans public schools and helped to desegregate the New Orleans Recreation Department (NORD). (3) Taylor fought for civil rights, corrections reform of Angola Prison, and economic equality for Blacks over the span of six decades. “When I decided to run for the LA State Legislature, my major concern was that I might use my office to improve living conditions—the social, political and economic makeup of my district,” said Taylor. (4)

Taylor believed in the need for more female leadership and the need for more women role models. Taylor’s role model was Sojourner Truth and Taylor promoted instilling pride in one’s self. Taylor said “We need these historical role models to remind us that we are somebody. That we were somebody before slavery. That we were somebody during slavery. That we were somebody after slavery.” (5) Taylor emphasized the importance of Black involvement in city government and was a fierce advocate on “eliminating policies that have a negative impact on the equality of life in the Black community.” (6)

Taylor’s stance on creating equal opportunities for the Black community is her lasting legacy. In the later years of her career, Taylor was known for enacting an ordinance that prohibited segregation practices in Mardi Gras krewes. Taylor felt that if public resources were used for krewes to participate in Mardi Gras parades, then all citizens should be allowed to join any particular krewe. Taylor also knew that important deals were made behind krewes' closed doors that did not include or benefit Blacks. (7) In 1992, she enacted a city ordinance to prevent Mardi Gras krewes from discriminating based on race. (8) According to a 2006 NPR piece, some white New Orleanians labelled Taylor as “the vixen that tried to steal Mardi Gras." (9)

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Growing up in New Orleans during the 1930s and 1940s, Sybil Haydel-Morial wondered why she could not go to certain places like other people. Reflecting on her childhood in her memoir, Witness to Change, Haydel-Morial stated “why I wondered, should my color separate me from the things I want to see and do?” (1) The oppression of white supremacy and racial segregation affected Haydel-Morial’s everyday life. Haydel-Morial’s family created their own networks of interaction in Black communities. In her memoir, Haydel-Morial explained how her "parents, along with other middle-class blacks, out of necessity created our own cocoon of interaction for professional and social activities and at the same time limited the rejection and humiliation we experienced in our Southern cities.” (1) Haydel-Morial’s parents opened their home to weary travelers due to a lack of accommodations for Black people in New Orleans. Haydel-Morial’s parents also made their backyard a play area for the neighborhood children, so that they might safely play.

Haydel-Morial studied at Xavier University before transferring to Boston University in 1950, and that was when she began to see life differently. “I relished my new life in Boston,” Haydel-Morial said. “I would always have an abiding love for Louisiana, but in leaving it, I had found that my roots could grow both deeper and wider.” (1) In Boston, all facilities were open to Black people, and Haydel-Morial wanted to experience life without the trappings of segregation. Haydel-Morial’s experiences in Boston made her want the same for Louisiana. On May 17, 1954, Haydel-Morial turned on the radio and heard the news that in the case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. This ruling declared segregation of children in public schools was “inherently unequal.” (2)

The following summer, Haydel-Morial returned to New Orleans. After a Great Books Book Club meeting, Sybil Haydel-Morial met with a friend, Ernest Nathan “Dutch” Morial, and after discussing W.E.B. DuBois’ Souls of Black Folk, the two decided to meet and discuss Brown v. Board of Education. Haydel-Morial applied to Tulane University. She was accepted and enrolled in two courses. When filling out a registration form, Haydel-Morial wrote “Negro” in the blank for race. Tulane University asked Haydel-Morial to leave because they did not accept Black students. Haydel-Morial called “Dutch” Morial, “It’s over,” Haydel-Morial said, “I was asked to leave.” (1) Nearby Loyola University also rejected Haydel-Morial because she was Black. Haydel-Morial returned to Boston to complete her master’s degree and began teaching. (3)

In February of 1955, Sybil Haydel-Morial married “Dutch” Morial and they returned to New Orleans. “Dutch” Morial dove into local civil rights activism in New Orleans and held a law practice with A.P. Tureaud, a prominent civil rights attorney in New Orleans. Sybil Haydel-Morial also became a champion for civil rights. After being rejected by the League of Women Voters for membership on the basis of race, Haydel-Morial and several other mothers formed their own organization, CiCulSo (an acronym for Civic, Cultural, and Social Organization). (1) CiCulSo evolved into the Louisiana League of Good Government (LLOGG), an organization of women of different ethnicities that pursued voting rights and ensured voter rolls included Black people. Haydel-Morial also joined the women’s auxiliary of the Urban League (which her son, Marc, is the current President and CEO), the Urban League Guild. (4) The Urban League Guild supported the Urban League and was responsible for fundraising, mentoring youth, and helping community leaders develop leadership skills. In 1963, Haydel-Morial filed lawsuits against the Orleans Parish School Board for enforcing a law that kept Orleans Parish school teachers from advocating for integration or belonging to associations that favor integration. (5)

Throughout her teaching career in New Orleans public schools, Haydel-Morial brought cultural awareness to many students she encountered. She championed many civil rights issues, all while raising five children with her husband “Dutch” Morial. Haydel-Morial curated educational programs to raise awareness about civil rights while leading a number of community organizations. Haydel-Morial became an administrator for Xavier University, and eventually, Associate Dean, where she remained for 28 years. In 2015, Haydel-Morial completed her memoir Witness to Change: From Jim Crow to Political Empowerment.

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Rosa Freeman Keller used her influence to mold the world around her and change the unfair practices she saw daily due to white supremacy and segregation.

Keller, born in 1911, was the daughter of a successful Louisiana Coca-Cola tycoon, A.B. Freeman. Keller was white, wealthy, and maintained societal connections that would bolster her activism efforts. Keller’s brother was a member on several boards in New Orleans and Keller was also close friends with Judge J. Skelly Wright. (1) In 1932, Keller experienced anti-Semitism after marrying her Jewish husband Charles Keller Junior. Keller’s husband was in the army and spent time away from the family. Keller used that time to focus on activism. Keller recalled, “It was World War II that woke a lot of us up… I’d married a Jewish fellow, and learned a lot about prejudice then… I thought I could see the seeds of what got Germany in such terrible trouble right here.” (1)

In 1944, Keller formally began her role in activism when she joined the New Orleans Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) Board of Directors, a position previously held by her mother. (2) Keller noticed the discrimination that African Americans experienced and also became aware of her own privilege. “It was bad enough that they were kept out of privately owned facilities, but worse was my perception that “public” meant “public for whites only,” said Keller. (3) Keller worked with African-American women at YWCA. Keller recalled, “I met people like Jesse Dent and Daisy Young… They were ladies, lovely people, beautifully educated. I didn’t know they existed; the town was so sealed up in compartments.” (1)

In 1945, Keller became a supporter of the Urban League and would become its president. (1) Keller used her influence to open doors that were closed to African Americans. Keller escorted Black community leaders into the offices of white businessmen to encourage them to employ African Americans. (1) In 1959, Keller worked to desegregate New Orleans public schools and public libraries and received death threats for her efforts. (2, 4) Keller served on the boards of Dillard University, a historically Black university, and Flint-Goodridge Hospital, which provided much-needed medical services to the Black community. In 1964, Keller financed the lawsuit that desegregated Tulane University and participated in voter registration projects with leaders in the Black community. (1) Keller worked with white liberals and Black community leaders to address issues that affected African Americans in New Orleans. In 1993, A New Orleans Public Library branch was dedicated in her honor on Broad Street. (5)

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As a teen, Doratha “Dodie” Smith-Simmons entered the Civil Rights Movement in New Orleans, following in the footsteps of her older sister, Dorothy Smith Venison. Simmons’ activism began as a means to gain access to The Golden Pheasant Social Club. (1) Simmons’ sister and other activists would meet at the Golden Pheasant after attending National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) meetings. In exchange for not telling their parents that her sister attended these meetings, Simmons asked sister Venison for bus fare and entry to the NAACP meetings. At the age of 14 or 15, however, Simmons ultimately joined the New Orleans chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Simmons said she “liked what they [CORE] were doing because the NAACP wasn’t doing any direct action.” Simmons found CORE’s approach “exciting.” (2) CORE activists were leaders of non-violent civil rights protests in New Orleans. CORE organized boycotts, sit-ins, and picket lines at establishments with racist practices. Simmons became known as a “first lieutenant” to fellow CORE member and organizer, Oretha Castle Haley. (3)

As the New Orleans chapter of CORE grew in prominence, Simmons’ activism grew as well. As a teen, Simmons braved violence while she picketed and participated in sit-ins, which sometimes resulted in police arresting and jailing her. On March 27, 1964, police arrested Simmons and fellow activists outside the entrance to Loew's State Theater because they were protesting the theater's segregation policy. (4) Simmons’ activism within CORE led to her participation in the Freedom Rides. The “Freedom Riders” rode interstate buses to challenge southern states' non-enforcement of Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which made segregation on public buses unconstitutional. (5, 6) Simmons’ served as a test rider prior to the national Freedom Rides. Simmons and other CORE members rode a bus from New Orleans to McComb, Mississippi to test segregation practices of public facilities. The riders took seats at a lunch counter at the bus terminal in McComb to test the law, after which Simmons said “all hell broke loose.” (7) A mob of white people attacked the test riders and Simmons escaped to the so-called colored section of the bus terminal. From 1962 to 1963, Simmons worked with CORE to integrate hotels and Florida beaches and participated in the March on Washington. (7)

After participating in the test rides, Simmons became a trainer for CORE. She taught members how to participate in nonviolent protests. According to Simmons, CORE set up three training centers at that time, one in Nashville, Tenessee, one in Montgomery, Alabama, and one in New Orleans. (8) Eventually, Simmons shifted her focus to advocating for Black New Orleanians' voting rights by educating voters about registration tests and organizing voter drives. “For me, I wanted to be out in the field, and I guess I felt what I did was great. It was a good feeling knowing that you were able to help someone,” Simmons said. (9)

The video below, created by The Historic New Orleans Collection as part of their NOLA Resistance Oral History Project, features Simmons discussing her experiences with CORE. (10)

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On the morning of November 14, 1960, Ruby Bridges, a six-year-old Black New Orleanian, took her first steps through the front door of William T. Frantz Elementary School (now Akili Academy). A mob of white people greeted Bridges with jeers and threatened to remove their children from Frantz Elementary if Bridges entered the premises. Bridges later described the loud mob’s roars as “being at Mardi Gras.” (1) Bridges did not understand what was happening that morning, only that she would be attending a new school.

Federal marshals escorted Bridges to school. Bridges did not go into a classroom the first day but remained in the principal’s office watching parents remove their children from the classrooms. (2) In addition to student withdrawals, teachers quit as they refused to teach African American children. One teacher remained to instruct Bridges. Once Bridges finally joined other students at play, she realized the reason for her isolation. Bridges attempted to make new friends; however, she was told by a fellow student that they were instructed by their parents not to play with her because of the color of her skin.

In 1999, Ruby Bridges formed The Ruby Bridges Foundation in New Orleans. The foundation’s mission is “to promote respect and equal treatment to all races.” (3) Through her foundation, Bridges attends public speaking engagements, hosts a virtual classroom and podcast, and she also has a book club. Bridges’ desire is to teach others how to overcome racism. Bridges is the subject of the Norman Rockwell painting, The Problem We All Live With, (4) and a movie made about the history-making event that shaped her life. Bridges visited the White House under former President Barack Obama’s administration when Rockwell’s painting was on display. President Obama, stated “I think it’s fair to say that if it wasn’t for you guys, I wouldn’t be here today.” (5)

Bridges has two elementary schools named in her honor, one in Alameda, California, and the other in Woodinville, Washington. Bridges has a bronze statue dedicated in her honor at William T. Frantz Elementary (present day Akili Academy). (6)

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