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.
]]>Today the blocks bound by Magnolia, Seventh, Freret, and Sixth streets appear to be a vacant greenspace. However, for nearly a century, these two blocks housed the Thomy Lafon School complex. Originally built in 1906, the property operated as a school throughout the twentieth century until 2005, when it was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The main school building was demolished in August 2011. Archaeologists monitored this process and discovered that the two blocks once occupied by this school had an even longer history as the site of two nineteenth century cemeteries called Locust Grove Cemeteries Nos. 1 and 2. The Locust Grove Cemeteries No. 1 and No. 2. were established between 1865-1879 for the city’s indigent residents. By this period, there were several cemeteries in this vicinity including Lafayette Cemeteries Nos. 1 and 2 and St Joseph Cemeteries Nos. 1 and 2. The Lafayette cemeteries were municipal, ostensibly reserved for residents of what was then the city’s Fourth District, while the St. Joseph Cemeteries only interred bodies for a fee. Lafayette Cemetery No 2. had recently been overwhelmed with burials after the devastating Yellow Fever outbreak in 1853, and was ordered to be closed for burials outside of the Fourth District. Atypically, and possibly part of Reconstruction Era policies, a plot of land was reserved in Lafayette Cemetery No. 2 in which to bury Black residents from the Fourth District who could pay. Black residents whose families could not pay would be buried in the new cemetery, called Locust Grove. The first Locust Grove Cemetery was opened in 1865. In March 1877, the city opened Locust Grove Cemetery No. 2. In 1878, yet another Yellow Fever epidemic overwhelmed the city; the conditions of the cemeteries began deteriorating, and the citizens and officials of New Orleans began to take notice. Many individuals reported grim encounters and gave details of piled up bodies, exposed corpses, and multiple bodies shoved into one grave. In January 1880, only 27 years after the first and 3 years after the second, The Daily Picayune reported that the Locust Grove Cemeteries were closed, covered with soil, and sown with grass seed. In the years after its closing the land was used as a dumping ground. Within only a couple of decades, a school for Black students was constructed near the former Locust Grove Cemeteries. This school was named in remembrance of the late Thomy Lafon, a Black philanthropist in New Orleans. The first building accommodated 500 students. Soon after, the school was burned down in conjunction with the Race Riot of 1900 sparked by the murder of Robert Charles. The African American residents of New Orleans began petitioning for the school to be rebuilt. Plans were underway by March 1905 and the second Thomy Lafon School was ready by the 1906-1907 school year. This time, the City Council selected the site of the former Locust Grove Cemeteries to build the second school. A playground was built in the summer of 1915 and it became the first playground in the U.S. established for African American children. In 1922, Thomy Lafon School had 30 classrooms and 2,515 students enrolled, making it the largest African American elementary school in the United States. This layered site contains some of the best and worst aspects of New Orleans’ history. When looking at New Orleans’ rich history of cemetery use and funerary activities, there are some unique themes that can be uncovered. Setting certain spaces aside for the dead, classifying people after death based on wealth or race, and deciding who should be buried where are all cultural patterns that reflect and can often be predicted by one’s status while alive. As we see in Locust Cemeteries, the ways someone’s body was handled after death was contingent on emerging politics, like those shifting across New Orleans’ Reconstruction-era landscape. The mistreatment and mishandling of the human remains of New Orleans’ poor and Black residents is unfortunately seen repeatedly in archaeological sites like Locust Grove Cemetery. When analyzing this space through the context of the Thomy Lafon School, similar themes echo. A large part of Louisiana’s past consists of inequality and prejudice towards African American residents from slavery to segregation. The transfer of a polluted, indigent burial ground into a school for Black children reflects broader patterns of systematic racism. Even so, Thomy Lafon School, established as a successful Black school during the era of separate but equal, represented the city’s Black excellence and resistance to racism. The school’s perseverance and success over the years highlights the theme of progress and advancement for the African American community in New Orleans throughout the twentieth century.
]]>By the 1870s, steamboats carried passengers up and down the Mississippi River, docking in the ports of major cities like New Orleans. Here, in July 1872, Captain John Benson denied Josephine Decuir née Dubuclet entry into the women’s cabin on the steamer Governor Allen explicitly because she was a woman of color, and the women’s cabin was reserved white women only. She was also not allowed to take her meal at a table until all white passengers finished first. Madame Decuir sued Captain Benson for racial discrimination, joining a legacy of women of color who used litigation in the courts to gain rights denied to them during the Reconstruction era. Madame Decuir’s lawsuit against Captain Benson was the first legal case to challenge segregation after the Civil War. Madame Decuir spent the entirety of the American Civil War in France, living in a social environment where she was treated as equal to white women. She came from a family of Black Creoles who spoke French, enslaved others, and owned plantations. Her brother, Antoine Dubuclet, had political influence and served as the Louisiana State Treasurer after the Civil War. In 1866, when she returned home to Louisiana, Decuir boarded the main cabin of the Lafourche, but Captain Barranco denied her access, explaining that segregation was the custom on all steamships. Her prior experiences in France, pride in her family’s status, and Creole identity inspired her to affirm her right to equality. When Madame Decuir boarded the Governor Allen with her lawyers seven years later, she understood the power of them bearing witness to this practice of segregation that directly violated her rights guaranteed under the Louisiana State Constitution of 1868. Decuir’s legal case began in the New Orleans courts and progressed to the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in 1877, at the end of Reconstruction. Her lawyers argued that Article 13 of Louisiana’s 1868 State Constitution as well as an 1869 statute afforded her equal access to all modes of transportation regardless of race. Madame Decuir never attended court, but her testimony demonstrated a level of intent equal to other women of color who did. Thirty-one women of color, like Madame Decuir, challenged segregation on common carriers from 1855-1914. Decuir relied on her gender and social class to demonstrate that she was a well-respected woman and therefore deserved access to the women’s cabin. At the local courts, other steamship captains testified as witnesses on behalf of Captain Benson to affirm the practice of segregation. In response, Decuir’s case called upon Creole men of color to describe the conditions of the segregated ships. After these testimonies, the judge awarded Decuir $1,000 in damages at which point Captain Benson appealed to the State Supreme Court which upheld the local decision. As a result, Captain Benson’s lawyers requested that SCOTUS add this case to the docket. By the time the case reached SCOTUS, the dynamics had changed. First, Captain Benson died and his widow, Eliza Jane Hall, became the administrator. As a white woman, she represented the institution of segregation that justified racial separation for the protection of white women. The court was more concerned with Decuir’s race than her gender. Additionally, R.H. Marr, a staunch white supremacist who defended the Colfax Massacre and instigated the Battle of Liberty Place, joined as co-counsel for the defense. In Hall v. Decuir (1877), the Supreme Court overturned the Louisiana Supreme Court’s ruling. Even though Decuir’s stint on the Governor Allen remained within the state of Louisiana, the court made a decision on intrastate affairs--because the boat traveled to other states after Decuir disembarked--fell under the jurisdiction of Congress. Therefore, Louisiana’s civil rights laws protecting Black citizens from racial segregation were nullified by federal powers. This ruling demonstrates how SCOTUS intentionally dismantled Black citizenship rights and rolled back federal protections. Hall v. Decuir set the stage for the doctrine of separate but equal by nullifying civil rights laws against segregation. As a Creole woman of color, Decuir’s protest against racially discriminatory practices foreshadowed the arguments of the Comité des Citoyens. Years before the Comité, she fought for public rights to guarantee her dignity and status. Justice Harlan also cited the Hall v. Decuir ruling in his lone dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson. Hall v. Decuir demonstrates how Black women like Decuir were a part of the legacy of defying and challenging the practice of segregation and their involvement in racial justice movements.
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