In 2020, the Federal Emergency Management Agency provided funding to the Recovery School District (RSD) authorizing the renovation of Martin Berhman Elementary School under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and the Emergency Assistance Act. RC Goodwin and Associates, a cultural resource management company, conducted archaeological excavations of the historic school properties that predated the existing Martin Berhman Elementary School Gymnasium. The site is located north of Red Allen Way, formerly Slidell Street, south of Opelousas Avenue, west of Vallette Street, and east of Verret Street, in Algiers Square 125. The excavation focused predominantly on the historic schoolhouse, a portress dwelling, and a playground used from the Reconstruction Era to the Great Depression.

The property was originally a plantation owned by Canadian immigrants Pierre and Marguerite Gosselin, who moved to New Orleans in the 1770s. The land was passed down through the family line until it was sold by Marguerite Françoise Gosselin to Jean Baptiste Olivier, who maintained ownership of the space until his death in 1869. By 1882, the Gosselin property became the location of a school for African American children in Algiers Point. The McDonogh No. 5 campus expanded to cover over a fourth of the block. In addition to the school building and portress housing, the campus contained five other structures, two of which archaeologists identified as play sheds.

By 1904, plans were made to renovate McDonogh No. 5 and reopen it as a segregated white-only school to accommodate the growing white population in the area. The Orleans Parish School Board, with approval from Mayor Behrman, adopted a resolution to displace the Black student population. Due to vehement protests from Black families, whose children had no other school to attend close by, the Orleans Parish School Board constructed a new school for African American children, McDonogh No. 32. The white student population quickly exceeded the existing campus’s capacity. By 1930, construction began on the new Martin Behrman Public School.

The 2020 renovations provided local archaeologists with the opportunity to examine how this space developed in response to the social and political changes in the decades following the Civil War, as Reconstruction ended and the era of Jim Crow segregation began. In New Orleans, the turn of the century is known both for its Progressive era reforms and its regressive racial policies. From writing utensils and medicine to children’s toys and clothing, the artifacts excavated from this site provide valuable insight into the changing role of schools and the student experience within a segregated education system.

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In 2019, the New Orleans City Council launched a city-wide effort to change the names of streets honoring white supremacists. While the city implemented its renaming efforts, a clear need for an educational component to give context to the changes presented itself. Filling the gap, public history graduate students at the University of New Orleans created projects to illuminate the work of the Street Renaming Commission.

Produced by the Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies, Streets on the Table is a podcast that reflects on the historical relevance of both the old and new street names. Hosted by two UNO graduate students, the podcast highlights the lives and histories unrecognized in the commemorative landscape.

In this episode, guest researcher Ariel joins Eddie and Lauren at Xavier University to discuss her research on Dr. Norman C. Francis.

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In 1964, the Urban League of Greater New Orleans published the results of “A Survey of the Recreational, Social, and Economic Conditions of the Negro Population of the William S. Guste, Sr., Homes and the Adjacent Areas.” The Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) recently opened the Guste Homes and housed a population of 2,443 residents, not including the high-rise home for elderly residents that made up a part of the project. Many saw such housing projects as an important first step in addressing the needs of low-income residents of the City. However, the report recognized that housing covered only one aspect of neighborhood revitalization; of those 2,443 residents, 1,731 were young people, and the report emphasizes that for them “recreational and cultural opportunities in the area [were] woefully inadequate.”

Surveys like the one produced by the Urban League can give important glimpses into the demographics and social conditions in the neighborhoods that organizations identified as slums. In the seven tracts of the census considered part of the Guste area (roughly the blocks bounded by Dryades, Claiborne, First, and Calliope Streets, encompassing the Guste Homes and the adjacent areas) the overall population consisted of 28,293 people, 77% of whom the census classified as “Negro.” Streets other than major thoroughfares were unpaved, inadequately lit, and “cluttered with debris.” The survey deemed the tenement buildings adjacent to Guste Homes occupied by renters as “overcrowded and hazardous.” According to the survey, a woman with a family of seven children complained of rats almost as big as cats in the Melpomene neighborhood, saying that several of her children had been bitten and that the rodents occasionally invaded her broken ice box.

Of 103 households the Urban League surveyed in detail, only 29 had lived in New Orleans all their lives. Many of those living in the Melpomene neighborhood recently transplanted to the city from rural parts of Louisiana and Mississippi, and felt isolated from social life and economic opportunities in the city. Ironically, many cited the improved educational opportunities for their children as a reason to move to the city, but the two schools that served Black children in the neighborhood, McDonough No. 36 and No. 38, were so overcrowded that students attended in what was called the “platoon system,” splitting the student body into two groups, each attending only half a day, switching over at lunch time. For working parents, this was a hardship, and many residents complained about the adverse effects the lack of childcare facilities and community centers had on young people in the neighborhood.

Naturally, residents were not happy about these conditions. Tenants complained about the conditions of housing and their inability to get absentee landlords to make needed repairs, though the survey noted that the few owner-occupied properties showed “care and pride” in their upkeep. Many renters felt that landlords overcharged for rent, creating cycles of poverty from which it was almost impossible to escape.

Underlying all of this was segregation and structural inequality. A racist social, political, and economic structure -- meant to keep Black residents of the city in permanent second class citizenship -- limited their choices about where to live, where to work, where to go to school, and even where to shop and socialize. Soon enough, the Guste area would become one of many centers of organizing for the Civil Rights struggle in New Orleans. But the inequalities within it were not inevitable. The Melpomene neighborhood that became the Guste Homes was always a site of struggle for residents of the city, and we can trace those struggles over generations of change in the neighborhood.

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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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In the 1954 Supreme Court Case Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment prohibiting states from denying equal protection of the laws to any person. (1) This court decision declared separate educational facilities for white and African American students inherently unequal. Without clear instructions from the federal government on how public schools would integrate, public schools in southern states took full advantage of the lack of federal leadership and allowed schools to remain racially segregated. (2) Several years later, federal intervention forced the racial integration of public schools throughout the nation.

Judge J. Skelly Wright first ordered New Orleans Public Schools to integrate on February 15, 1956. (3) Ultimately the Judge had to execute his own integration plan after the New Orleans Public School Board refused to establish one of their own. (4) On the morning of November 14, 1960, Leona Tate, Tessie Prevost, and Gail Etienne entered the doors of McDonogh No. 19 Elementary School as its first African American students. The media dubbed them “The McDonogh Three.” (5)

As the young girls entered McDonogh No. 19, crowds of angry and verbally abusive white people gathered outside of the school. “Somehow we were able to maneuver through a crowd of cursing, screaming, yelling people, who were being held back by the police,” said Tate. (6) There was no physical violence that morning, but white parents removed their children from the school once the girls entered the building. (2) Federal marshals escorted the three girls into the school. The McDonogh Three became the public faces of New Orleans Public School integration. That experience would change Leona Tate’s life and set her on a course to her lifelong role in political activism. In 2009, Tate formed The Leona Tate Foundation for Change. Tate focuses her life’s work on promoting change through education and empowering and enriching her community. The Leona Tate Foundation for Change aims to address the community’s issues “from a spiritual, multicultural, economical, historical, and social perspective.” (7)

In 2005, McDonogh No. 19 School closed following the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. In 2019, Tate’s foundation, in partnership with Alembic Community Development, acquired the McDonogh No. 19 building. (7) Tate announced that the school she once helped to integrate would become The Tate, Etienne, and Prevost (TEP) Interpretive Center. (8) The center will focus on providing affordable housing for senior citizens, educational programs, training and workshops, and revitalizing the Lower 9th Ward. Tate stated: “I’m overwhelmed with unspeakable joy because I’m excited about what this project means for the city of New Orleans and the pivotal role it will play in revitalizing the historic Lower 9th Ward community.” (9)

Tate’s primary objectives in preserving the McDonogh No. 19 building are to create a permanent memorial site and exhibition dedicated to the McDonogh Three and the integration of New Orleans Public Schools; curate engaging programs that will attract visitors and address the needs of the community; and stimulate the local economy of the Lower 9th Ward. Tate wishes for all who enter the center to leave with an overall understanding of the importance of the events of November 14, 1960, and McDonogh Three’s contribution to the Civil Rights Movement and the possibilities for the further advancement of African Americans. Tate feels that there is more work to be done, as segregation has taken on new appearances such as restructuring school districts by creating tiered systems that greatly disadvantage poor African American New Orleanians. (10)

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In 1930, Signer Sewing Company hired local architects Charles Favrot and Louis A. Livaudais to erect a Neoclassical style storefront at 934 Canal Street to house a flagship Singer Sewing Center. [1, 2]

In 1850, Isaac M. Singer invented the first practical sewing machine for general domestic use. This sewing machine was the “first to embody features allowing continuous and curved stitching, his machine employed an overhanging arm holding the needle bar over a horizontal table, thus making it possible to sew on any part of the work.” [3]  In 1855, Singer’s invention won first prize at the Paris World’s Fair. In 1885, Singer demonstrated the first workable electric sewing machine at the Philadelphia electric exhibition. In 1910, Singer began mass-producing domestic electric sewing machines. [4]

During the early twentieth century, the sewing machine increased the speed at which women could fabricate goods and clothing in the home. By 1951, according to SVP, the company that now owns the Signer brand, it is estimated that Signer Sewing Centers trained over 400,000 housewives to sew in one of the 600 Singer Sewing Centers located nationwide. [5] When visiting the Signer Sewing Center at 934 Canal Street, women could purchase sewing machines and notions, in addition to attending classes to educate themselves on how to use the machinery and additional sewing skills such as embroidering and quilting.

The Singer Sewing Center provided a space for women to gather and socialize. Here women could meet together to learn new skills and discuss personal matters and popular culture, in turn creating a culture all their own. Singer Sewing Centers advertised their store as a place women could go to learn hemstitching, picoting, and covering buttons, and come out “walking on air.” [6] According to a 1947 Life Magazine advertisement, Signer only sold their machines in their sewing centers, “never through department stores or other outlets,” further solidifying the sewing centers as a meeting place for women while ensuring Signer secured the greatest profit possible. [6] The Singer Center created a new culture all its own centered around homemakers and women who wanted to create things.

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Located near the geographic center of the university, the University Center, or UC for short, host various offices such as the cafeteria, bookstore, ballroom, and staff offices for Student Involvement and Leadership. In the past, the UC also hosted the Admissions and Financial Aid offices. This meant that nearly every student, including members of Black Greek organizations, were required to pass through the UC. The UC was a place for socializing and a place for business.

Marie, an African American student who first began classes at UNO in 1967, once made the long walk from the Liberal Arts building to the UC while attending school. As an African American woman, there were many spaces where Marie felt unwelcomed. Marie did not feel that way when she was around her sorority sisters. Marie pledged the Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority in 1969, when the sorority was the only Black Greek organization on campus.

During her tenure at UNO, Marie studied French. Marie grew up in New Orleans, a segregated city where she was always surrounded by African Americans, just like her. Yet when she arrived at UNO, a predominantly White campus, Marie felt like a foreigner. She was the only African American in all her classes and all her professors were White. After simply walking into class, she felt disadvantaged due to her skin color. One day, Marie received an essay back from her professor extensively marked with corrections and a poor grade. Marie felt discouraged, as if she couldn’t go on. In an oral history interview conducted in 2018, Marie reflected on what happened next:

“I was on my way to drop out of school. I was devastated, so I was, I’m crying walking across to the UC. Because at first, we didn’t have all the buildings that they have now. But they did have the UC. And I remember, a couple of my Sorors saw me, and they pulled me on the side. We looked out after each other, they looked out after you, we looked out after each other, they pulled me on the side you know, what’s the matter, why you crying. They talk, they literally kept me from dropping out of school. Because I was determined I would quit. They would not let me quit.”

The support Marie received from her sorority sisters prevented her from dropping out of the University. Marie went on to graduate with a degree in French. The support provided by the sorority not only benefited her, but all of her sisters, as she stated, “Everybody that pledged Sigma Gamma Rho, along the time I was there, graduated from UNO. Everybody.”

Marie’s story demonstrates the strong communal bonds Black Greek letter organizations fostered among members, and how those bonds supported the academic success of African American students.

As the central location on the campus of UNO, the University Center would host events for generations of UNO student organizations. This would be no different for Black Greek letter organizations. In 1990-1991, Alpha Phi Alpha celebrated its chapter anniversary, and both Phi Beta Sigma and Zeta Phi Beta won the Greek Week talent show doing a step performance. Performing these functions in this central location ensured Black Greek organizations would be highly visible to the student body. Having and maintaining this high level of visibility would prove to be an act of resistance. It was important to show that Black students were not only attending UNO, where they continued to be in the minority and unwelcomed but were showcasing their talents and resistance to the entire student body.

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The half mile stretch of Leon C. Simon Drive, that forms the front boundary of the University of New Orleans’s campus, was a central performance space for Black Greek letter organizations in the 1980s and 1990s. The stretch of sidewalk was the sight of “death marches,” artistic and synchronized marches performed by new initiates of Black Greek letter organizations. These marches took place when new members “came out”, announcing their status as official members of their organizations after weeks of studying fraternity/sorority history, organization, and purpose.

Marches brought out huge audiences, many of these onlookers belonged to the UNO community, including members of predominantly White Greek organizations. Marches were a rare instance when predominantly white greek organizations interacted with historically Black Greek organizations. Joan Brown-Staidum, a charter member of Zeta Phi Beta at UNO (a historically Black organization, discussed her death march during an oral history interview conducted with her by the author in 2018:

“...that was the week that you did all the studying, you didn’t come out, you didn’t do, they didn’t see us the whole entire week, until then, until the march.

“The only thing they [predominantly White Greek organizations] came to was when we were going over, we had the death march.”

This stretch of Leon C. Simon Drive was a space where members could be unapologetic and celebrate their membership in organizations that forged bonds between members and provided a support system to uphold them throughout their academic career. This performance officiated and solidified their membership, and conferred their membership into a very important and needed bond.

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Black Greek letter organizations at UNO play an essential role for African American students as they do across the nation. Black Greek organizations provide a safe space for African Americans where communal bonds form, perform service and activism for the African American community and foster connections with the campus and its resources.

Services rendered by Black Greek organizations encourage the academic success of African Americans and function as a method of resistance against the hostilities African American students face.

Eight Black Greek organizations have chartered chapters at UNO, including:

Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. (Gamma Pi, rechartered 2006 as Rho Delta)

Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. (Eta Eta ,1973)

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. (Theta Phi, 1973)

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. (Mu Tau, 1976)

Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. (Iota Lambda, 1978)

Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. (Upsilon Iota, 1980)

Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. (Lambda Omicron, 1983)

Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. (Theta Mu, Unknown)

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On a stroll around most college campuses, you may see students wearing shirts, hoodies, and sweaters with a number of letters from Greek alphabets in a variety of colors. These students are members of Greek letter fraternities and sororities, gendered organizations with the purpose of brother/sisterhood and camaraderie. Yet Greek organizations have an interesting history and cultural divides among them.

Social Greek organizations began in the United States in the early nineteenth century. These organizations were highly exclusionary, often restricting membership to people of specific genders or races. As fraternities and sororities continued to grow, exclusionary practices began to increase, and many greek organizations' constitutions were written or ratified to restrict membership from African American students. To resists this exclusion, African American students began forming their own Greek letter organizations.

Starting in the early twentieth century, African American students formed their own Greek fraternities and sororities to foster communal bonds and increase professional opportunities after collegiate careers, but also to provide community service to the African American community. Service and activism are central principles of Black Greek organizations. Ideals of racial uplift were prominent at the time people founded many of these organizations.

The founders of Black Greek organizations were made up of a small number of African Americans in the early twentieth century that attended colleges and universities. These students attained the education and resources usually only afforded to the White population, then used those resources to educate and benefit the entire African American community in order to foster racial equality. Using these resources for racial uplift, the founders of Black Greek organizations created their organizations to benefit the African American community across the United States. They would charter chapters at multiple universities, both nationally and internationally, to spread their mission.

Nine of the largest Black Greek organizations organized into an umbrella council, the National Pan-Hellenic Council, in order to promote their common purpose.

First opened in 1958 as the Louisiana State University in New Orleans, the University of New Orleans (UNO) was the first public university in the South to open as an integrated institution. Despite its racially integrated student body, African American students at UNO faced hostilities from its earliest days to the present time, including cross burnings, intimidation tactics, unfair grading, and restricted use of spaces. Black Greek Organizations were essential resources for students admitted to UNO who faced grave discrimination from university officials, students, and the public.

To learn more about the hostilities Black Greek Letter Organizations fought and resist against, see “55 in ’58: Integrating the University of New Orleans.”

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Edgar Joseph Edmunds was born January 26, 1851, in New Orleans to Edgar and Rose Euphemie Foy Edmunds, free people of color. Edmunds graduated fifth among a class of over 200 students at the Polytechnic Scientific School in Paris. While in school, Edmunds gained a reputation for proficiency in mathematics and later earned a lieutenancy in the French artillery service. In 1872, Edmunds returned to New Orleans where he received an invitation to teach. Racial tensions were high upon Edmunds return to New Orleans. In 1874 the White League attacked the Metropolitan Police force in an attempt to instate a government based in white supremacy.

In 1875, Boy’s Central High School, an all-white school, announced Edmunds as the new Professor of Mathematics. According to the local newspaper, on Edmunds’ first day at the school, all 11 members of the senior class protested being taught by a “colored man” by walking out of the school. Later that afternoon, a young man approached Edmunds on the street shouting obscenities and racial slurs and a crowd soon formed. In order to defuse the situation, Edmunds stepped into a nearby office instead of engaging with the young man and the crowd soon dispersed. Other citizens of New Orleans also protested the Edmunds position within the school. An opinion article in the New Orleans Times objected Edmunds’ appointment, as it would “make a negro the master of a white boy.”

Others supported Edmunds’ appointment. P.B.S. Pinchback, former governor of Louisiana and the first black governor in the United States, fully supported the appointment of Edmunds, as did the Board of Directors for the Orleans Parish School Board. While there are very few quotes from Edmunds himself, in a newspaper article he challenged his critics to a battle of mathematical problems, and when asked about rumors of his resignation, Edmunds responded he will, “continue the fight to the bitter end, no matter what the result might be.” The following semester, Edmunds continued to hold his position at Central High School. It is not clear how long Edmunds worked at Central High School.

Edmunds continued to teach mathematics, publish in mathematical journals, and eventually secured a teaching position at Southern University. After several years of battling illness, Edmunds passed at the young age of 36, leaving behind his wife, three young children, and notable teaching career. In the racially violent Reconstruction-Era, Edmunds was able to defy the racist society he lived in and demonstrate that Black New Orleanians would not passively endure treatment as second class citizens. Through his professorship, Edmunds integrated a school 80 years before the Supreme Court ruled racial segregation in schools unconstitutional.

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Imagine sitting on a bus, hearing loud shouts from outside. You look out the window to see a giant mob of segregationists throwing anything they can get their hands on at you. These are the scenes that Freedom Riders, integration civil rights activists, experienced during the 1960s as they traveled through the segregated South.

The Freedom Riders rode public transit throughout the segregated South in order to challenge local laws or customs that enforced segregation. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) funded the travels of the Freedom Riders. [1]

On May 15, 1961, the Freedom Riders traveled to New Orleans by plane after a group of segregationists violently attacked their busses in Anniston and Birmingham, Alabama. [2] The Freedom Riders struggled to find a place to stay upon their arrival in the city. Hotels refused to admit them. [3] Many people were afraid to house the Freedom Riders because they believed trouble would follow. These fears were agitated by groups like The Citizen’s Council, which, according to the Times-Picayune, referred to the Freedom Riders as “a lawless, radical group” and “ideological brigands”. [1] The Council went so far as to demand Mayor deLesseps S. Morrison “rid the community of [the] agitators before violence erupt[ed].” [1]

Ultimately Xavier University of Louisiana came to the aid of the Freedom Riders. Dr. Norman C. Francis, then Xavier University’s Dean of Men, fought to permit the Freedom Riders to stay on Xavier’s campus and kept their visit a secret from the general public to ensure their safety. [4]

Xavier University housed the Freedom Riders in St. Michael’s Residence Hall on the third floor; they stayed in the dormitory for a week. [1] The presence of the Freedom Writers was significant for Xavier University students and the surrounding community, the Riders encouraged the community to take a public stand against social prejudice and racism.

Both the generosity of Dr. Norman C. Francis and Xavier University and the courage of The Freedom Riders remain palpable on the college’s campus today. St. Michael’s Residence Hall has continued to serve a temple of hope and strength for both Xavier University and New Orleans. [5, 6]

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In August of 1948, a young man from Lafayette, Louisiana named Norman C. Francis moved to New Orleans to further his education at Xavier University. While at Xavier he remained grounded in the life lessons his parents taught him as a young boy, which include, “succeed despite obstacles, respect yourself, respect others, get a good education, and remember there is dignity in people at every level of work.” These lessons along with his faith shaped the leader that Dr. Norman C. Francis would become.

Francis graduated from Xavier University in May of 1952 with a Bachelor’s of Science Degree. Prior to graduation he applied to Loyola University School of Law and was accepted. In 1955, Norman C. Francis made history as the first African American to graduate from Loyola University School of Law. Days after graduating from law school, Francis married Blanche Macdonald, a 1948 Xavier University graduate, and approximately two weeks later he received U. S. Army draft orders.

When Francis’s tour in Germany ended, in 1957, he returned to New Orleans where he accepted an invitation from Sister Josephina Kenny, S.B. S., President of Xavier University to serve as Dean of Men, the first of many posts Francis would hold at the university The other posts Francis held at Xavier comprised of several administrative positions including, Director of Student Personnel Services, Assistant to the President of Student Affairs, and Assistant to the President in charge of Development.

On April 4, 1968, the day that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Dr. Norman C. Francis, at the age of 37 accepted the position as President of Xavier University, thus becoming the first black lay person to hold the position. Dr. Francis retired as President of Xavier University in 2015 after serving 46 years and being honored as the nation’s longest serving college president.

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St. Frances Xavier Cabrini arrived in New Orleans in 1892, with a charge to help poor Italian immigrants at a time of intense xenophobia in the city. A year earlier, a local lynch mob had murdered 11 Sicilian immigrants. Yellow fever had also decimated the local immigrant community. Mother Cabrini got to work quickly, establishing an orphanage at 817 St. Philip Street in the French Quarter.

Born as Maria Francesca Cabrini on July 15, 1850, in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, Italy, she dealt with poor health as a child but was an excellent student. As a young adult she taught at an orphanage for several years before taking her religious vows in 1877. She co-founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus congregation, which focused on caring for poor children, and as the institute grew she was encouraged by Pope Leo XIII to continue her mission in the United States, which had an increasing number of poor Italian immigrants.

In 1889 Mother Cabrini and six other sisters came to the U.S., eventually setting up 67 missions across the country, including in New Orleans. As her school and orphanage in the French Quarter continued to take on more poor children, she acquired land on Esplanade Avenue and had another orphanage built in 1905. The building served as an orphanage until 1959, when it became Cabrini High School New Orleans.

Mother Cabrini became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. in 1909 but died just eight years later in Chicago due to complications from dysentery. Pope Pius XII made her the first naturalized U.S. citizen to be canonized in 1946. The patron saint of immigrants, Mother Cabrini is venerated for her lifelong commitment to the care and education of poor, sick, and orphaned children, particularly those of Italian heritage who struggled after arriving in America.

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On January 29, 1858, student André Gregoire wrote the following in an assignment for his English class: “A man cannot do anything if he has no education to conduct himself in business; therefore, I make all my efforts to learn as soon as I can.” He profited in this, he said, from the dedication of his school masters: “for they teach me well and are very good to me.” André was a young free person of color living in New Orleans when it was illegal to teach enslaved children to read and write. And although the city had public schools, they only admitted white children. But because of the dedication of his community and the largesse of one woman, he had a school to attend and was taught very well indeed.

André was enrolled at the Societé Catholique pour l’instruction des orphelins dans l’indigence, or Catholic Institution, the first community school dedicated to the education of children of color in the Deep South. It opened its doors in 1848 at the corner of today’s Touro and Dauphine Streets. Funds for the creation of the school came from Marie Justine Couvent. Couvent was born in Africa, sold from the African coast, and sent to Haiti where she eventually gained her freedom. She arrived in New Orleans in the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution, married here, and acquired property in land and enslaved people. Couvent set aside money and property in her will for the building of a school for poor orphans of color living in the Marigny district. Pressure from members of the Creole community insured that Couvent’s bequest became a reality. Eventually, the school welcomed free children of color with or without parents from many parts of the city.

The students at the Catholic Institution studied under artists and writers inspired by the ideals of the revolutionary Atlantic World, many of them with ties to Haiti and France. Yet they also displayed a deep attachment to the city of New Orleans and a commitment to the cause civil rights in the United States, a commitment they shared with their students. As a young man, André Gregoire followed the path of his beloved school masters and became a teacher to formerly enslaved children. Graduates also included Rodolphe Desdunes, editor of the civil rights newspaper The Crusader, and founder of the Comité des Citoyens organized to fight the Separate Car Act, a fight which brought the Plessy vs. Ferguson case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Desdunes also taught at the Institution.

By the early twentieth century, the institution grew smaller as Creoles of color left the Marigny to settle in other parts of the city. Over time, the original location became the site of other Catholic schools. But memory of the Catholic Institution lived on in the Creole community as an important milestone in the struggle of people of color to educate their children—an institution that existed in the face of slavery, racism, and segregation. Perhaps the clearest evidence of this shared memory is that over time the school ceased to be known as the Catholic Institution. Instead, it was remembered as the Couvent School, to honor the lasting contribution of its foundress.

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John McDonogh was a wealthy businessman and owner of enslaved people during the early 19th century, when New Orleans was one of the nation's most prosperous cities. Upon his death in 1850, he donated much of his fortune to the education of "poor White and freed Black" children in New Orleans and in Baltimore, Maryland. Dozens of "separate and unequal" schools named for McDonogh were built around the city in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. On McDonogh's birthday each year, schoolchildren laid flowers at this statue in front of the then-City Hall. White children went first, while Black children waited in the hot sun until the White children were finished, in a cruel example of the punitive racial apartheid of the Jim Crow. In 1954, the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka struck down Jim Crow in schooling nationwide.  Local educators and civil rights leaders Revis Ortique, Jr. and Arthur Chapital organized Black students and teachers to boycott this ceremony, one of the city's first protests of the civil rights era.

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On November 14, 1960, three African American girls Leona Tate, Tessie Prevost, and Gail Etienne walked into McDonogh 19 Elementary School to attend their first-grade classes, integrating the traditionally all-white school located in the Lower Ninth Ward.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) declared separate public schools for Black and white students unconstitutional six years earlier, but McDonogh 19 and many other schools remained segregated due to the resistance of Louisiana State officials and the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB). In response to this refusal to integrate, Federal Judge J. Skelly Wright ordered the nation’s first court-ordered school integration plan in New Orleans. The mandate allowed Black families to enroll first-grade students in the school closest to them, regardless of race. However, potential students had to complete an application process to transfer to all-white schools, involving arbitrary and white-washed standards of intelligence and behavior. Out of the 137 Black children who applied for transfers, OPSB approved only five, including Tate, Prevost, and Etienne who became known as the McDonogh Three. [1]

Segregationists in Louisiana pulled out all the legal stops they could to block integration. They passed legislation to replace the elected officials on the OPSB with state-appointed committee members, while Act 496 also gave the governor the ability to override court orders for schools. Despite such attempts, Judge Wright used his seat on the federal bench to overrule the state’s overstepping. [2]

On the morning of November 14, Tate recalls how “a car pulled up, a black car which was the marshals…” [3] She references the federal marshals who arrived at the homes of the McDonough Three to escort them to school. As the news spread, the white parents of the Lower Ninth Ward came to protest and take their children out of the school. In a 2017 interview, Etienne reflects on the protestors: “I remember the crowd—the bigger thing to me that day was the crowds of people, the way they were acting and making all the noises, and hollering at us.” [4] As the three girls sat outside the principal's office waiting to go to class, children streamed out of the school in protest of integration. “And then after that it was just the three of us for an entire year,” Prevost explains, describing how white parents removed their children from the integrated school. [5]

In January 1962, the school board decided to convert McDonogh 19 into an exclusively African American school. Due to this change, the parents of the McDonogh Three removed them from McDonogh 19 and transferred them to T.J. Semmes, another school in the process of integration. McDonogh 19 remained an active school until Hurricane Katrina caused flood damage in 2005. Thanks to the Leona Tate Foundation, McDonogh 19 is now home to The Tate Etienne Prevost Interpretive Center, serving as a civil rights exhibit, community center, and affordable housing location as of May 2022. [6]

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Preservation Hall is a French Quarter concert hall with nightly performances by esteemed local jazz musicians.

Established in 1962 by young Philadelphia natives Alan and Sandra Jaffe, the space provided a safe place for older jazz musicians to perform in New Orleans at a time when state laws prohibited inter-racial performances.

After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Preservation Hall became widely known as a family-friendly concert hall in which New Orleans-style jazz is performed nightly. Through recordings, tours, and film the Preservation Hall band gained international recognition, and continues to present New Orleans music traditions to the world today..

Still family run for over 50 years, Preservation Hall hosts performances 350 nights a year, and includes educational programs aimed at preserving the legacy of Jazz in New Orleans.

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Founded in 1870, Leland University was created with the purpose of educating free black people living in Southern Louisiana. Originally meant to educate only freemen (black people that were free prior to the 13^th amendment), by 1873 the college eventually began to accept freedmen (black people that became free after the 13^th amendment). The college’s curriculum included educating students in Art, Sciences, Philosophy, Theology, Pedagogy, and Agricultural studies. Leland University opened as a coed school, borrowing its principles of education from W.E.B DuBois. In his controversial essay, “The Talented Tenth,” W.E.B DuBois praised Leland University as being one of the six largest and most important schools educating black people at the time. DuBois also praised the school for having Greek and Latin as a part of its curriculum. Leland incorporated industrial education into it’s curriculum as well, teaching its students how to grow crops, make clothing, teach children, and be clergymen. Female students were able to study in the Domestic Sciences department where students took classes in subjects like cooking and sewing. Leland University was located on 7013 St. Charles Avenue across the street from Audubon Park. Separated by the residential neighborhood Audubon Place, Leland University soon became a neighbor of Tulane University in 1894. Due to the area’s recent annexation into New Orleans (the area was originally known as Jefferson), Leland quickly became prime real estate with tourists and students alike in awe of Leland’s immaculate campus and convenient location. After a storm in 1915 damaged the campus, Leland University’s board of trustees decided it would be best to sell the university instead of repairing it. The land behind the university became Newcomb College, a women’s only college that later became a part of Tulane University. Leland University (renamed Leland College) moved to Baker, Louisiana until it closed its doors in 1960.

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Founded in 1834 by seven medical doctors, The Medical College of Louisiana's mission was to train New Orleans doctors in the combat of cholera and yellow fever [1, 2]; two of the most deadly diseases which plagued the U.S. south during the 1800s. In 1847, the Louisiana state legislature added a law school to the college and renamed it the University of Louisiana. [2] The state legislature provided limited funding for the school, and with little enrollment, the young school nearly failed. The school’s first president, Dr. Francis Lister Hawks, was selected partially because he would be able to fulfill his duties as president while maintaining an income of his own, as there would be no salary allotted to his position due to lack of funding. [2]

In 1851, an academic school was added to the university. Like the previous two branches of the university, the academic branch also suffered from lack of funding and enrollment in its infancy. The branch nearly collapsed entirely under the weight of a yellow fever epidemic which broke out in the city in 1853, killing 7,849. [3] The university temporarily closed in 1861 due to the many complications posed by the Civil War. It reopened again in 1865, but enrollment and funding remained scarce. [2]

By 1881, the University of Louisiana was in serious financial trouble. A November 18, 1881, Daily Picayune article urged for public support:

“We ought to be proud of our University, whose schools of Law and Medicine are supplying the two noblest professions with material of which any nation would be proud; and we shall be compelled to be prouder of it when our wealthy citizens have founded twenty more professorships in the department of literature and science. Let every one help to hasten that time.” [4]

As the University of Louisiana struggled to stay afloat, Paul Tulane, a retired dry goods wholesaler, donated property to the State of Louisiana appraised at $288,700 “for the promotion and encouragement of the intellectual, moral, and industrial education among the white young persons in the city of New Orleans.” [2] This donation was dubbed the Tulane Educational Fund. Then Louisiana Congressional Representative Randall Lee Gibson, a former Confederate Brigadier General, devised the Tulane Educational Fund. The fund was managed by a board of administrators composed of wealthy and influential citizens of New Orleans. [2]

The University of Louisiana and the Tulane Educational Fund saw an opportunity for mutual benefit. It was agreed that the Fund would take possession of the university. As a result, the then public institution was transferred to the private ownership of Tulane Educational Fund and the institution was renamed Tulane University. Louisiana State Legislature Act 43 of 1884 made the university’s transition from public to private official, and the Tulane University of Louisiana was born. [5]

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Le Petit Salon was once the most exclusive and prestigious private women’s organization in New Orleans. Founded in 1924 and described as a “circle of distinguished ladies,” the Salon quickly became an influential player in the cultural revival of the French Quarter during the 1920s. The mission of the Salon was “to revive, promote and continue the pleasant intercourse of the Salon, which gave grace and brilliance to the old society of this city,” with an emphasis on the historic preservation of the French Quarter. When Le Petit Salon was first organized, the French Quarter had experienced decades of neglect and decay. By 1920, preservationists, including members of Le Petit Salon, were making strides to protect and revive the historic neighborhood. 

Le Petit Salon’s members were often women of high social status and prominence from Uptown New Orleans. The Salon membership was a combination of old Quartier Club members and active members of Le Petit Theatre. Their gatherings on Thursday afternoons and receptions after Le Petit Theatre’s performances featured notable literary figures like Sherwood Anderson, Hamilton Basso, Roark Bradford, Oliver La Farge, Lyle Saxon and Tennessee Williams. These weekly meetings included literary and poetry recitals, historic and philosophical lectures, and musical performances by both club members and nationally renowned artists. New Orleans native and writer Grace King served as the first president of Le Petit Salon and organized the purchase of the Salon’s 620 St. Peter Street residence. King was born to a wealthy New Orleans family in 1852, and had deep loyalties to her Creole heritage, writing from “a sort of patriotism--a feeling of loyalty to the South.” Her work as a journalist and historian helped push Southern literature into the national spotlight. After her death in 1932, author and friend Lyle Saxon eulogized Grace King as New Orleans’s “greatest woman and our greatest writer.” Advice columnist Dorothy Dix followed King as president. On August 10, 1925, Le Petit Salon bought and restored the townhouse at 620 St. Peter Street for $13,500 to accommodate its growing membership. Constructed in 1838, the Greek Revival home was built for successful hardware merchant Victor David, an immigrant from France to New Orleans after the fall of Napoleon. Tulane architecture professor and preservationist Samuel Wilson credited Le Petit Salon with initiating the restoration of the French Quarter in the 1920s. One of the club’s greatest preservation successes was the formation of a committee appointed to the French Quarter Commission to prevent the demolition of the Beauregard-Keyes House in 1925.

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Looking north from the library commons towards Lake Pontchartrain, you can spy the old brick smokestack near the edge of the campus. The smokestack is the only original structure remaining from the decommissioned naval air station that once stood on university grounds. Arnolie told of her first impression of the new campus: “I can’t believe this is what they are trying to keep me out of,” she recalled thinking. “The classrooms were made out of hangers, airplane hangers, and the heat was terrible.”

Local members of the Ku Klux Klan tried to turn up that heat, even after integrated classes were underway. One morning, just days into school, students were greeted by a KKK flag flying atop the smokestack (pictured below) along with anti-integration signs around campus.

Not to be outdone by the Klan, the White Citizens Council of Greater New Orleans, according to The Times-Picayune, “asked the board of supervisors to close the school rather than conduct classes on an integrated basis.”

Even the LSU Board of Supervisors publicly declared hostilities. According to an article appearing in The Louisiana Weekly, Sept. 20, 1958, the board issued a statement reading in part: “This board wishes to point out that any Negro student whose enrollment is forced upon this university enters as an unwanted metriculant.”

“The atmosphere was not a welcoming one,” Narcisse recalled.

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Enter the University Center at the top of the horseshoe driveway. To your left is the university cafeteria, renamed in 2014 for Louise Williams Arnolie, one of the original 55 African-American students and the first of her group to graduate from the university. Grab a snack, pull up a chair, and learn the rest of the story.

Despite the school's physical plant deficiencies and racial strife, LSUNO soon garnered a reputation for having high academic standards, which was one of the reasons Raphael Cassimere applied and became one of the 419 black freshmen who entered LSUNO in 1959.

After hearing stories of what had faced the first class of African Americans, Cassimere’s parents “weren’t too keen on my going there,” he said. “But that thirty-five-dollar tuition convinced my mother and she convinced my father.”

It seems that those first students had borne the brunt of the abuse. When Cassimere arrived on campus, most of the white students “were indifferent,” he said. He even managed to gain a small amount of acceptance when he received the highest grade on a test given by a particularly hard history professor. “It gave some of the white students a new perspective,” he said.

However, there was one aspect of LSUNO Cassimere was unhappy about: the cafeteria was still segregated. Black students were only allowed to buy food at a snack bar in a separate building. Cassimere approached attorneys Tureaud and Morial about the situation, and they agreed to write a letter to Dean Hitt.

“That’s when we found out that it wasn’t the school segregating the cafeteria,” he said. “Morrison’s, which ran a number of cafeterias in the region, had the lease and they had decided not to serve black students.”

Following continued pressure from attorneys Tureaud and Morial, as well as student snack-bar boycotts, Dean Hitt finally gave Morrison’s an ultimatum in the fall semester of 1960: either serve all students or give up the lease. The company chose to give up the lease.

The school “closed the cafeteria for a month between semesters, then reopened for the spring, serving everybody and there were no problems,” Cassimere recalled. The image below shows the cafeteria as an integrated space in 1961.

The victory was “very exciting,” said Cassimere, and the integration process at the college arguably spurred more social change. The following summer, at the first meeting of the new NAACP Youth Council, all of the officers elected were students from LSUNO. Working with other groups such as CORE (the Congress of Racial Equality), the youth council conducted sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Woolworth’s and McCrory’s, located on the city's main thoroughfare, Canal Street.

They also boycotted and protested in front of downtown stores demanding that African Americans be allowed to hold such jobs as sales clerks, Cassimere recalled.

“That was considered a good job,” he said. “Up until then black people were only hired to do cleaning, or if you were light skinned, maybe you could run an elevator.”

On Aug. 12, 1965, after 730 days, the Canal Street protest ended, Cassimere recalled, “and literally hundreds of jobs had been created.”

As for Cassimere, he earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in history from LSUNO, then went on to receive a doctorate from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He then returned to UNO, where he taught history for more than 30 years.

Cassimere said he’s proud of the long hours spent by he and his UNO friends on the NAACP youth council working for integration, voting rights, and better jobs.

“We helped create a black middle class in New Orleans,” he said.

The rewards were simpler for Joseph Narcisse, who left school in 1960 to join the Air Force, but went back with the help of the G.I. Bill to finish his UNO degree in 1976. He recalled a particularly proud moment in the late 1970s, after his return to school. One day on campus, he overheard two black students openly having an academic debate, with obviously no self-consciousness or fear of those around them.

“I saw them sitting there, sounding all smart and feeling good about themselves,” he said, “and I thought, ‘I had something to do with making that happen.’”

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To help ease initial hostilities and bring order to the campus, the founding dean, Homer Hitt, released a statement to the student body, threatening suspension or expulsion of any student “found to be guilty of disorderly conduct,” as reported by The Times-Picayune on Sept. 18, 1958. The day after this statement, the KKK flags and signs had showen up on campus.

By October, four white students were suspended for “conduct unbecoming college students,” according to the newspaper. However, there was little to no other action taken by the administration to curb harassment, according to members of the 55.

The year before, the U.S. Army had shown up to escort black students to Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. The black students who showed up at LSUNO in 1958 were on their own. The administration provided no security - not even anyone in authority - to ensure the students' personal safety, members of the 55 recalled.

In fact, a local TV news outlet was allowed to set up cameras on top of one of the school buildings everyday. Black students came to dread any time they had to enter Building 5, because when they did, white students would gather to play for the cameras. For more of this story, see the first video below.

And while security officers were assigned to guard a parking lot where black students parked, their presence apparently didn't deter vandalism, some of which could have had deadly consequences. Fontenette recalled returning to a friend's car at the end of the day for a ride home. As soon as his friend started up the car, all the wheels fell off. Someone had entered the guarded lot, removed all the car's lug nuts, and replaced the hub caps. Despite the fact that a more capable vandal may have killed these students (by only loosening the nuts so that the wheels would fly off when the vehicle was moving), school officials took no action, Fontenette said.

In the second video below, Fontenette also recalls the first time he ever saw the dean come out of his office to address a situation. Fontenette arrived at school to find a female friend, Pi, unable to enter the campus because white students barred her way. Most often, the only recourse for students was to try and wait it out.

Walk past the bus stop to Milneburg Road. In the 19^th century, Milneburg was the name of the town where UNO now stands. The five miles of cypress swamp and farm land between the town and New Orleans proper provided enough space for Milneburg to develop into a small resort. There, musicians of all ethnicities formed bands and, together, they helped to develop jazz. Half a century later, in the same place, black and white people were not even allowed to eat together in the university cafeteria.

Cross Milneburg Road and walk toward the cafeteria, located in the University Center (the large building on the left, across from the administration building).

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