The “crisis” of New Orleans desegregation is an important part of the history of the U.S. South. Both white and Black residents in their respective communities heavily contested the idea of school integration in New Orleans, but the crisis is infamous due to white residents’ violent backlash to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling and Judge J. Skelly Wright’s subsequent order to desegregate public schools by 1960. The case study of desegregation in New Orleans and its racial, political, and economic connotations is central to examining the complexities of educational inequalities in the twentieth-century American South.

Historian Louis R. Harlan has argued that the midcentury was not the first time schools in New Orleans had desegregated: the first efforts at racial desegregation occurred in public schools in the 1870s.^[1] In his 1962 article, Harlan focuses on the six-year school integration success of 1870s New Orleans. The 1870s saw state superintendent Thomas W. Conway push to move towards New Orleans desegregation through a mixed school trial. Harlan points out that during this period, white people outnumbered Black people three to one. Additionally, white Republicans and the city government worked in collaboration with the New Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) to resist these efforts.^[2] This was the first instance of New Orleans resisting desegregation in public schools, and the OPSB searched for loopholes to deny school integration— actions that would be replicated in the mid-nineteenth century. New Orleans utilized newspapers to spread fear and encourage schools to be abandoned by white families in favor of private schooling. The papers also predicted an impending race war in response to desegregation.^[3] While the school board and white Republicans saw some success in keeping schools segregated, there were still white and Black students who attended the mixed schools.

The districts that introduced mixed schools were not changed dramatically because the areas already had lax residential segregation. The Second and Third districts already had mostly desegregated schools.^[4] The Fifth and Seventh districts also had desegregated schools. The 1870s only saw a temporary decline in student enrollment due to the schools already being mixed. As in the mid-nineteenth century, desegregation would see a jump in Black student enrollment in public mixed schools. The schools that saw an increase in Black student enrollment also saw correlations to higher academic achievement.^[5] The Black and white students in these schools were considered well-behaved and excellent students, according to contemporary newspapers.

Desegregated schools also had crowding issues that were different from the 1950s. The schools, classified as Grammar A schools, had better instruction, leading to overcrowding. The graduation rate was higher; this school type sent more students to high schools. The quality of these elementary schools was also why Black and white parents sent their children there, regardless of race.^[6] Harlan credits white acceptance of Black student integration in public schools to the heavy presence of federal troops from the North that were sent there to protect the rights of Black people in the South following the Civil War. Despite the white population outnumbering the Black, Reconstruction prioritized the protection of the Black population in Louisiana, and Black residents had the most votes. For white families to win, they needed to remove the Northerners.^[7] The failure of desegregation in the 1800s was one of the failures of Reconstruction. With no protections from the North after 1877, Black people in New Orleans could not sustain the mixed schools or work alongside white people to ensure equal education opportunities for all children.

While Reconstruction saw some success in desegregating New Orleans public schools, these successes were short-lived. The return to the status quo after the departure of federal troops resulted in a return to inequitable education in New Orleans. The Ninth Ward witnessed the harshest consequences of this development. Juliette Landphair has studied Black organizing in the Ninth Ward to get better conditions for their neighborhoods, including efforts to address school overcrowding.^[8] After World War II, Black activists teamed up with Ninth Ward Civic and Improvement League’s leader, Wilfred S. Aubert Jr., and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to target discrimination in New Orleans schools.^[9] The Ninth Ward was rural, comprising poor and working-class white immigrants, Black residents, and people of mixed heritage. It was also isolated from the central city and had a tight-knit community. As a result, it was common for white and Black children to socialize together.^[10] Despite this, the Ninth Ward struggled to get support from the city. The first Black public school was constructed in 1933. World War II pushed Black activists to advocate for more facilities and jobs. Marginal gains in these areas inspired Black leaders to argue for equal education.^[11] However, the OPSB was resistant and indifferent to Black students’ struggles. One white school board member, for example, admitted that the conditions of the school buildings were not suitable for farm animals.^[12] As a result, the NAACP worked to build buildings of equal quality for Black children.

In 1948, two Black activists, A. P. Tureaud and Daniel E. Byrd, sued the OPSB to get equal educational facilities for Black students.^[13] OPSB resisted and was sued again in 1952. After the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education ruling that segregation was unconstitutional, Black New Orleanians continued fighting for better schools but faced intimidation from white residents who refused to integrate. Despite the urging from federal judge J. Skelly Wright, white leaders had little preparation for desegregation. The two schools chosen for desegregation were in the Ninth Ward and endured explosive protests from angry white mobs.^[14]

Philip A. Grant Jr.’s article discusses white backlash to desegregation in parochial schools in New Orleans. In 1956, Archbishop Joseph F. Rummel denounced racial segregation. In 1962, Rummel announced that parochial schools would accept all Catholic children for admission in the 1962-1963 school year.^[15] The Archbishop intended to remove all racial barriers in the school system. The backlash from this decision came from three prominent Catholics: layman Jackson G. Ricau, housewife B. J. Gailot, and councilman Leander H. Perez. Ricau was a member of the Citizens Council of South Louisiana, a segregationist organization. Gailot was the wife of Jr. Galilot, the President of Save Our Nation Incorporated, a small segregationist group. Leander was President of the Plaquemines Parish Council, who strongly opposed integration.^[16]

The three staunchly opposed Rummel’s decision to integrate the parochial schools and were vocal about their dissent. Perez recommended that white families keep their children out of schools, while Gailot spoke with the press about a letter she received from Archbishop Rummel, in which, she claimed, he threatened her. Perez also compared racial integration to Communist-Zionist ideologies.^[17] Ricau felt that Archbishop Rummel was betraying the Church because he wanted to push racial integration and compared the effort to Communism. Gailot, Perez, and Ricau were accused of inappropriate public conduct, and on April 16, the Archbishop excommunicated all three.^[18]

As white Catholics resisted school integration in parochial schools, white teachers faced a backlash in New Orleans’ newly integrated public schools from white mobs. Historian Alan Wieder has written extensively on the New Orleans desegregation crisis. One of Wieder’s articles looks at short narrative excerpts from people who lived through the crisis. The first portion of this narrative concerned white teachers. White teachers expressed frustrations that their personal convictions did not spare them from having to work in integrated schools. Many white teachers supported the mob’s protesting integration for various reasons. One teacher wanted to boycott alongside white families but could not justify abandoning their job to do so. Other white teachers believed that integration would not work and that Black students would not be able to adjust to white schools because the teachers believed that Black and white minds were genetically different.^[19] Many teachers were upset by the system’s lack of support and hostile environment. Teaching children was the desire of these teachers, but they felt thrust into a situation where they could not do so.^[20] The system was failing, and these teachers could do nothing to fix it.

Despite broad opposition, some white teachers supported racial integration in schools. Helen Nicholson commented that racial integration would allow Black people to combat stereotypes and give students opportunities to excel outside of sports. It would also let Black students prove they did not have to make up the highest percentages of special education and remedial classes.^[21] Violent protests across the city also played a part in teachers’ responses. In addition to mixed ideas about opposition or support for racial integration, teachers also expressed concerns about white children being taken out of school. When Frantz and McDonogh 19 Elementary first integrated four students, white parents came to the school to retrieve their children.

Many white teachers hoped those white children would return to the schools. By Christmas of the first year of integration, teachers realized parents had found alternative schools.^[22] The white families of the students still attending the schools received systematic harassment at school, work, and home. It continued until all white families fled from Frantz Elementary.^[23] Josie Ritter, a white teacher at Frantz Elementary, recalled confusion at the situation that was never explained to staff. White children had already been at school, and Ruby Bridges, the first Black student who would be integrating into Frantz Elementary in 1960, would arrive later. No apparent plan was in sight. The principal was not around to lead the school. The entire debacle was confusing and had no direction for a smooth integration.^[24] The chaos of Bridges’ integration into Frantz Elementary exemplifies the difficulties of implementing the official order to desegregate New Orleans. Despite six years of white resistance from OPSB and efforts the New Orleans district office to stop integration, the OPSB implemented the plans. But these plans were sloppy and gave teachers no time to prepare. Bridges would also need to be escorted to and from school by U.S. marshals for her protection from the white mob outside the school. Bridges attending Frantz Elementary was symbolic of the changes that would impact other Black students in the 1960s and beyond.

Wieder has also studied the impact of integration on Black families, including the stories of the Bridges, Prevost, and Tate families. Ruby Bridges’ father was fired for sending Ruby to Frantz School for integration and went through a depressive episode as a result.^[25] The Bridges signed Ruby up for the school because they had assumed that all Black families would do the same. They did not know that their decision would be life-altering. There also had no idea that Ruby would be alone in the classroom.^[26] Their decision also impacted Ruby Bridges. She often received threats from the mobs outside of the school, and seeing reporters was now part of her daily life. This stressful situation put a strain on Ruby.

The Prevost family differed from the Bridges. The father was a college graduate. After sending his daughter, Tessie Prevost, to McDonogh 19, Prevost had to sort the hate mail addressed to his daughter. He chose not to discuss the school crisis, but he did feel that the efforts for integration were inadequate.^[27] Tessie and her grandmother disagreed. Tessie’s mother’s opinion was somewhere in the middle: she struggled over the conflict of wanting her child to attend a desegregated school but also worried about the white protestors’ rage.^[28] Tessie herself viewed the situation positively. She liked interacting with the teachers and enjoyed the media attention. Tessie also spoke about the positive mail she received from around the world, likely because her father hid the negative letters from her.

Sending Leona Tate to an integrated school was a simple decision for her parents. The father’s job security as a mechanic was not at risk.^[29] The Tates regarded sending Leona to the integrated school as a simple matter: if Leona qualified, she would go. Leona’s mother discussed seeing the crowds outside McDonogh 19. Leona also mentioned memories of her family being threatened but not expressing much fear. Instead, the Tate family felt secure in their positions and relied on the police.^[30] As Leona recalled, “If they’d have kept pursuing it the way they said they would it would have been a whole lot different.”^[31] This statement references white protests of school integration in 1960. Despite the year of explosive white protest, it eventually died down, and the integration of New Orleans Schools was completed in 1965.

^[1] Louis R. Harlan, “Desegregation in New Orleans Public Schools during Reconstruction,” The American Historical Review 67, no. 3 (April 1962): 663.

^[2] Harlan, “Desegregation in New Orleans Public Schools,” 665.

^[3] Harlan, “Desegregation in New Orleans Public Schools,” 665.

^[4] Harlan, “Desegregation in New Orleans Public Schools,” 667.

^[5] Harlan, “Desegregation in New Orleans Public Schools,” 668.

^[6] Harlan, “Desegregation in New Orleans Public Schools,” 668.

^[7] Harlan, “Desegregation in New Orleans Public Schools,” 670.

^[8] Juliette Landphair, “Sewerage, Sidewalks, and Schools: The New Orleans Ninth Ward and Public School Desegregation,” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 40, no. 1 (Winter 1999): 35.

^[9] Landphair, “Sewerage, Sidewalks, and Schools,” 36.

^[10] Landphair, “Sewerage, Sidewalks, and Schools,” 40-41.

^[11] Landphair, “Sewerage, Sidewalks, and Schools,” 43.

^[12] Landphair, “Sewerage, Sidewalks, and Schools,” 45.

^[13] Landphair, “Sewerage, Sidewalks, and Schools,” 48.

^[14] Landphair, “Sewerage, Sidewalks, and Schools,” 53.

^[15] Philip A. Grant Jr. “Archbishop Joseph F. Rummel and the 1962 New Orleans Desegregation Crisis,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia 91, no. ¼ (March-December 1980): 59.

^[16] Grant Jr., “Archbishop Joseph F. Rummel,” 60.

^[17] Grant Jr., “Archbishop Joseph F. Rummel,” 61.

^[18] Grant Jr., “Archbishop Joseph F. Rummel,” 65.

^[19] Alan Wieder, “One Who Left and One Who Stayed: Teacher Recollections and Reflections of School Desegregation in New Orleans,” Counterpoints 47, (1997): 95.

^[20] Wieder, “One Who Left and One Who Stayed,” 96.

^[21] Wieder, “One Who Left and One Who Stayed,” 97.

^[22] Wieder, “One Who Left and One Who Stayed,” 99.

^[23] Wieder, “One Who Left and One Who Stayed,” 100.

^[24] Wieder, “One Who Left and One Who Stayed,” 104.

^[25] Alan Wieder, “The New Orleans School Crisis of 1960: The Blacks Who Integrated,” Counterpoints 47, (1997): 113.

^[26] Wieder, “The Blacks Who Integrated,” 113.

^[27] Wieder, “The Blacks Who Integrated,” 115.

^[28] Wieder, “The Blacks Who Integrated,” 115.

^[29] Wieder, “The Blacks Who Integrated,” 118.

^[30] Wieder, “The Blacks Who Integrated,” 119.

^[31] Wieder, “The Blacks Who Integrated,” 120.