This project studies how desegregation impacted Black students in New Orleans public schools during the mid-nineteenth century using quantitative data collected from Louisiana’s Annual Financial and Statistical Reports (AFSR). I compared this quantitative data in sections to determine the severity of inequality between Black and white public schools before and after school desegregation. I separated the data into enrollment, classroom student-pupil ratios, finances, salaries, supplies, and available school sites. I also collected data from the United States Census Bureau. 

I located the AFSR data from the Louisiana Believes Digital Library. This website initially contained data dating between 1900 and 2023. The data needed from 1950 to 1980 moved to the Louisiana Public Documents Digital Archive. I collected the population census data from the United States Census Bureau for 1950, 1960, and 1970. There are several limitations with both sets of data. For the AFSR, the records for 1955 and 1967 are missing entirely. In addition, these data records gradually changed their formatting over the thirty years, so some information is also unavailable. Some statistics were removed from the records entirely. The 1970s saw a transition from raw data to more descriptive reports, so I had to cross-reference previous records to ensure consistency across the data set. For the population data, my limitation was that the Census Bureau only records the data every decade, and the data does not show how the OPSB integrated public schools or which schools were Black or white. 

I visualized the data using Tableau and ArcGIS Storymaps. I used the ASFR data to create line and bar graphs comparing public Black, white, and integrated schools. I separated certain graphs by elementary and high school to discern the severity of inequality and avoid generalizations. The ArcGIS Storymaps data includes the two landmark elementary schools for desegregation in 1960 and the courthouse where resistance to public school integration took place. There is another Tableau map that shows New Orleans public schools in the 1950s. This map displays schools over neighborhood locations based on the 1930s and 40s redlining project. I wanted to include more schools on this map, but addresses for many locations were lost after Hurricane Katrina