PART V: QUESTIONS

STUDENT COPY

Instructions: answer the following questions in complete sentences.

1. "It was worse than dirt. It was a kind of frightening 'witches' Sabbath.' They were not mothers, not women, but crazy actors playing to a crazy audience."

a) Who wrote this?

b) Specifically, who is the author of this quote describing when he refers to 'crazy actors?"

c) How did the quote reflect the view of much of the nation?

2. What happened to the families, black and white, whose children attended one of the integrated schools? Why?

a) Who was the Gabrielle family? What happened to this family? What was the final result?

b) In your opinion, why did some white parents keep their children in the integrated schools, while other white parents did not?

3. What did SOS stand for? What was its purpose? What did it do?

a) In what way did SOS camouflage its purpose? Do you agree with SOS's decision to camouflage its purpose? Why? Why not?

4. How did the white business elite prepare for the November 14, 1960, desegregation of public schools in New Orleans?

a) The attitude of the business elite changed after the desegregation crisis got underway. Why?

b) Specifically, what did the white businessmen do in the aftermath of November 1960?

5. What was the Freedom March? What is its significance?

6. Describe the events of October 31, 1963, in the cafeteria of City Hall. Specifically, what happened? Why?

a) How did Joseph Giarusso, the police superintendent, explain the actions of the police on October 31, 1963?

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PART VI--LECTURE NOTES

"We have as much segregation today as we had in the sixties, but it's a different kind of segregation now. It's segregation by choice."

-- Lloyd Rittiner, former president of Orleans Parish School Board

Part VI of A House Divided is the conclusion of the documentary.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of Part VI is to reflect on the Civil Rights period and to reach some conclusions about what has happened and what has not happened. For black people in New Orleans, life has changed dramatically since 1954 (and the Brown decision), but anger, fear, and frustration are deeply felt. Anger, fear, and frustration are also felt deeply in the white community. In New Orleans, people of different ethnic background live in relative physical proximity but yet in separate, insular worlds in which each knows little about the other.

PREPARATION: Summarize for the students the information provided below before they view Part VI. This final section is a collage of view points, a summary of opinions by the major participants in A House Divided.

1. LOOKING BACK

Here are quotes from those interviewed in Part VI. Each quote is suitable for discussion with students.

Rosa Keller: "As far as I'm concerned I'm much more comfortable in the world I live in now than I was for a while."

Jerome Smith: "Racism still controls the police department. Racism still controls the government...White America do not vote for the black candidates. They do not vote for us. They don't care what qualities we possess, you know. They don't want the nigger to be in charge."

Lloyd Rittiner: "We have as much segregation today as we had in sixty, but it's a different kind of segregation now. It's segregation by choice."

Lolis Elie, "I think there is a very substantial number of whites who have no interest in changing it."

Joe Giarusso: "I hope to keep changing. I hope to keep learning. I hope to express to my fellow man my love for him, you know, my love for him, and for the betterment of our lives, and I think that's what it's all about."

Oretha Castle: "I think this country still has a belief that black people are somehow or another less than they are, and I don't believe that has changed, and it began to get to the root of what racism is all about, and I think it's just as prevalent in 1984 as it is in 1904.

QUESTION: Whose opinion do you most agree with? Whose do you least agree with? Why? Give examples.

2. GOALS

The narrator of A House Divided, James Earl Jones, draws a list of goals the Civil Rights movement set out to achieve. He then compares this list with the actual results of the Civil Rights movement.

The first goal was to achieve the end to legal segregation. This was accomplished with the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The second goal was to give all citizens the right to register and vote. The 1965 Voting Rights Act did this. For the first time since Reconstruction black people in New Orleans were able to exert political power commensurate with their numbers in the population. The result was the election of a black mayor, Ernest "Dutch" Morial in 1977, and of two more black mayors, Sidney Barthemy in 1986 and Marc Morial in 1994.

The third goal was improved job opportunity. This goal has been "partly achieved "in the opinion of the editors who put together A House Divided. Advances have been made in education, but economic disparity between black and white remains substantial.

The fourth goal was equal opportunity for quality education for black children. This has not been reached. The public school system in New Orleans is majority black. It is profoundly underfunded. the physical infrasture is collapsing. In general, white children attend private schools. Segregation in education is nearly as sharp today as it was forty years ago.

3. ANSWERS

A House Divided ends on the same point as it began: education. The 1954 decision in Brown v. the Board of Education was a catalyst for launching the Civil Rights movement. It stated flatly that "separate but equal" was unconstitutional and that black and white children should have the same opportunities in education. This has not happened.

QUOTE: Dr. Norman Francis of Xavier University, in a concluding comment in A House Divided, argues that it is in the self-interest of New Orleanians (black and white) to make a major and sustained commitment to public education. In dire tones, he surmises it is the only way out of the morass:
Unless the public, and that means thirty year-olds, forty year-olds, black and white, invest in educating young people, they are then going to spend some of their precious dollars on social programs, welfare programs, and unfortunately even incarceration facilities. They have to have a longer look and that is going to take a broad and sophisticated view, and I'm not so sure that this generation appreciates this.

QUESTION: Ask the students to prepare a list of the problems besetting New Orleans and then a list of possible solutions. The students need only to peruse the newspapers to find material for discussion.

4. ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

In terms of the long chronology of New Orleans' history, the Civil Rights period of the 1950's and '60's occurrred only yesterday. Many people who lived during those times of dramatic change, as activists or as observers, are still alive. Most people have a good memory (however selective); everyone has an opinion. The relative proximity of the Civil Rights period offers an opportunity to involve students in an oral history project.

OBJECTIVE: The Civil Rights period offers insight into a range of human characteristics: courage, fear, conformity, passivity, will-power. It is instructive for students to enter the world of another person and to learn how that person thought, spoke, and acted. It is also instructive to learn about the history of New Orleans and, in this case, about its immediate history. The events of present-day New Orleans cannot be understood without a knowledge of the 1950's and '60's. At the end of the project, the class will have compiled an archive of interviews.

HOW TO BEGIN: It is up to the students to arrange the interview. The people to be interviewed can be anyone who is old enough to remember the 1950's or '60's. It can be a oral history "in the neighborhood project." The people do not have to be famous. They can be "ordinary." They can be the elderly gentleman who lives next door, or his wife, or their cousin. They can be the father, the mother, the friend. They can be anybody.

QUESTION: Before the interview, the student should prepare a list of questions. The questions should be based upon a knowledge of the Civil Rights period. Ignorance on the part of the interviewer is insulting.

The questions can be general: what was it like back then? What was your opinion of Jim Crow segregation? But the questions should also be specific and reflect a knowledge of the period: How did segregation touch you? Give examples.

Do you remember the race-screen? Did you ever see a black person forced to get up from his or her seat by a white person?

What was your reaction when the sit-ins began on Canal Street? Did you ever see a sit-in?

Do you remember the school desegregation crisis which began on November 14, 1960? What did you think when you saw the news that first night?

What do you think about race relations today?

FOLLOW-UP: The students should take notes during the interview or record it on a tape recorder or a video camera. If possible, the student should ask permission and then take a photograph of the interviewee. Afterwards, each student will present a summary of his or her interview to the class. What was the most interesting thing the interviewee said? What did you learn? What surprised you?

CONCLUSION: The most interesting and important sections of the interviews should be neatly typed onto sheets of paper and compiled into a notebook along with the photographs of the interviewees. At the end of the oral history project, the students will have an archive of the Civil Rights period.

TEACHER COPY

Instructions: answer the following questions in complete sentences.

1. In your opinion, what was the most important event in the Civil Rights period in New Orleans? What was the historical significance of the event? Explain your answer.

Chose one event from this list: the McDonogh Day Boycott; the Dryades Street Boycott; the Canal Street Boycott; the Freedom March; the October 1963 sit-in at the City Hall cafeteria.

This answer depends on the student's opinion.

The Supreme Court rendered its decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in May 1896; the decision in Brown v. the Board of Education was rendered in May 1954. Plessy v. Ferguson established that "separate but equal" public facilities were constitutional. Brown v. the Board established that "separate but equal" in public education was unconstitutional.

Plessy v. Ferguson was a major legal step in the establishment of Jim Crow segregation. After this decision, segregation became more rigidly enforced in New Orleans. The railroads were segregated. In 1902, the street cars were once again segregated. If the Plessy decision was a dark moment for American blacks, Brown v. the Board of Education was the opposite. It gave great hope that black children would receive a quality education.

The NAACP was founded in 1909 "to achieve, through peaceful and lawful means, equal citizenship rights for all American citizens by eliminating segregation and discrimination in housing, employment, voting, schools, the courts, transportation, recreation." Moorfield Storey, a white lawyer from Boston, Massachusetts, was the first present of the NAACP. Led by Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP led the fight for desegregation in the courts and met with notables successes, including Brown v. the Board of Education in 1954. The NAACP had an active office in New Orleans. A.P. Tureaud served as local counsel, leading the legal battles against segregation. The NAACP Youth Group, led by Ralphael Cassimire, participated in the sit-ins and in the picket lines of the 1960's.

CORE was founded in 1942 (Chicago) through the efforts of James Farmer. The Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) acted to combat racial discrimination with the techniques of non-violence espoused by Mahatma Gandhi in India. A CORE chapter was organized in New Orleans in the summer of 1960. The first chairman was Rudy Lombard.

Both organizations were integrated, and both fought for an end to racial discrimination and for equal rights for black people and others. NAACP battled for change through the legal system. CORE felt this approach was too slow. It advocated direct action on the street-level.The NAACP Youth Group also participated in direct action on the street level.

A.P. Tureaud, local counsel for the New Orleans NAACP, began the legal battle to end segregation in the 1940's with law suits to achieve equal pay for blacks teachers and to integrate LSU. In 1951, Tureaud filed suit in Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board, arguing for the desegregation of public schools.

In New Orleans, CORE activists were largely responsible for the desegregation of stores on Canal Street and of public facilities elsewhere in the city. CORE activists were the "shock troops" at most of the demonstrations in the 1960's.

The purpose of legal segregation was to keep the races as separate as possible. The meaning behind segregation was blunt: the white majority was in physical control and the black minority was forced, by threat of force, to live in an inferior position.

This is an answer that depends on the student's opinion.

Opinion.

Opinion.

The local police were ultimate guarantors of the segregated system. They were the force behind the law.

The police department took a neutral role, although it often harassed black demonstrators. At the desegregation of the schools, the police did not assist the black children attending the integrated schools. The police roughly handled Avery Alexander when they expelled him from the cafeteria at City Hall on October 31, 1963. During desegregation, the New Orleans police were generally not as brutal as elsewhere in the South, but brutality surely existed although not in public.

He explains that he was following orders. If anybody was to blame, it was the state legislature.

Opinion.

Opinion.

Opinion.

The overwhelming majority of white people were either indifferent or hostile to the changes brought about by the Civil Rights movement. Some white people, like the Cheerleaders, demonstrated against the changes. The White Citizens' Council, which comprised many members of the city's white elite, fought desegregation with economic reprisals and legal road blocks. However, some whites, although very few, worked to ease the desegregation crisis. The liberal women of the SOS are a good example. White businessmen, when they understood the economic implications of the crisis, worked together with their black counterparts to negotiate a solution.

a) Do you agree with this statement? If so, why? If not, why? Give examples to explain your point of view.

Opinion.

a) Do you agree with his statement? If so, why? If not, why? Give examples to explain your point of view.

Opinion.

Opinion.

Opinion.

1. In your opinion, what was the most important event in the Civil Rights period in New Orleans? What was the historical significance of the event? Explain your answer.

a) Chose one event from this list: the McDonogh Day Boycott; the Dryades Street Boycott; the Canal Street Boycott; the Freedom March; the October 1963 sit-in at the City Hall cafeteria.

2. Compare and contrast the Supreme Court decisions in Plessy v. Ferguson and in Brown v. the Board of Education. Specifically, in what year was each decision rendered?

a) What did each decision establish?

b) Explain the significance of each decision in terms of race relations in New Orleans. How did the decisions impact the relations?

3. What is the NAACP? What is CORE?

a) What similarities and difference s in philosophy did the NAACP and CORE have?

b) What successes did the NAACP achieve in New Orleans? Give examples.

c) What successes did CORE achieve in New Orleans? Give examples.

4. What was the purpose of legal segregation? What was its meaning? Explain.

a) What was the most violent incident relating to segregation presented in the documentary? Explain.

b) What was the most humiliating example of segregation? Explain.

c) What example of segregation was the most offensive? Explain.

5. What was the role of the local police during the period of legal segregation?

a) What actions did the police department in New Orleans take during the Civil Rights period? Give examples.

b) In the documentary A House Divided, how does New Orleans police superintendent Joseph Giarusso explain the position taken by his department during desegregation?

6. What is your definition of courage?

a) In your opinion, which black person in A House Divided demonstrated the most courage? Explain, using examples.

b) Which white person? Explain, using examples.

c) Who are the people in your life who have demonstrated the most courage?

7. Describe the reaction of the white community in New Orleans to the Civil Rights period? Give specific examples.

8. Oretha Castle concludes: "I think this country still has a belief that black people are somehow or another less than they are, and I don't believe that has changed, and it began to get to the root of what racism is all about, and I think it's just as prevalent in 1984 as it is in 1904."

a) Do you agree with this statement? If so, why? If not, why? Give examples to explain your point of view.

9. Lloyd Rittiner is quoted: "We have as much segregation today as we had in 1960, but it's a different kind of segregation now. It's segregation by choice."

a) Do you agree with his statement? If so, why? If not, why? Give examples to explain your point of view.

10. What are the problems besetting New Orleans today?

a )What are possible solutions?

CHRONOLOGY OF THE MODERN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN NEW ORLEANS

1950

Twelve young black men register for LSU law school. When their applications are rejected on July 24, 1950, they file suit. A.P. Tureaud, local counsel for the New Orleans NAACP, is their lawyer.

One of the black men, Roy Wilson, enters LSU law school. He withdraws three months later, but the color barrier is broken..

A.P. Tureaud, Jr., applies for admission to undergraduate school at LSU. The Federal court decides in his favor, but, during the time consuming appeal process, he transfers to Xavier University in New Orleans..

LSU is the first state university in the Deep South to admit black students. It does so with much resistance but no violence..

New Orleans recruits two black policemen, the first in the city since 1915..

1951

A.P. Tureaud of the New Orleans NAACP files suit in Federal court to force the Orleans Parish School Board to provide equal educational opportunities for black children in New Orleans. The suit is titled "Bush vs. Orleans Parish School Board." Litigation lasts twenty years.

1952

Blacks gain admission to City Park in New Orleans.

In 1952 and 1953, about one hundred blacks enroll in LSU law and medical schools.

Loyola University admits two black graduate students.

1953

In New Orleans, the United Clubs, a confederation of Mardi Gras clubs and a musicians' union, arranges for a United Negro College Fund ball at Municipal Auditorium, the use of which had hitherto been denied to blacks. New Orleans police arrive but cannot determine who is white and who is black. Municipal Auditorium is first segregated bastion in New Orleans to fall.

In Baton Rouge, the United Defense League, led by T. J. Jemison, a Baptist minister, stage a boycott of the city's public bus system. The purpose of the boycott, which lasts one week, is to protest segregation on the buses.

The boycott is called off after one week. The city's white leadership makes minor concessions, which are later reversed.

Archbishop Joseph E. Rummel ordains Aubrey Osborne, the first black priest in the archdiocese of New Orleans.

1954

Latter Memorial Library in New Orleans is quietly desegregated. Rosa Keller, a member of the library's board of directors, and Albert Dent, president of Dillard University, are instrumental in bringing about the largely peaceful transition. The library board requests that the media not publicize the first day of desegregation, a request which is honored.

In March 1954, Mississippi Senator James O. Eastland, an arch-segregationist, brings the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee to New Orleans to hold hearings on the civil rights organization, the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, which Eastland described as "a communist front organization."

Pontchartrain Park, a middle class housing development, is built by the lake front with the assistance of Edgar Stern, a wealthy Jewish philanthropist in New Orleans. In the 1960's, Southern University (SUNO) is founded near Ponchartrain Park as the black equivalent of the University of New Orleans.

On May 8, 1954, black school children and their teachers boycott the annual parade at Lafayette Square in honor of John McDonogh, the 19th century slaveholder who bequeathed his fortune to public schools of Baltimore and New Orleans. Observing the rules of segregation, black children marched in the rear of the procession at Lafayette Square. The 1954 boycott of the McDonogh Day is the first modern protest involving all the various groups of the New Orleans black community. The boycott is repeated in 1955.

On May 17, 1954, in the case Brown v. the Board of Education, the Supreme Court establishes that "separate but equal" in public education is unconstitutional. The ruling calls for the desegregation of public schools. The decision is denounced by segregationists, who describe May 17, 1954, as "Black Monday."

The first White Citizens' Council meeting is held on July 11, 1954, at Indianola, Mississippi. The Citizens' Councils, established throughout the South and comprised of middle and upper class whites, seeks to prevent desegregation by inflicting economic reprisals on blacks and others who advocate racial change.

The White Citizens' Council of Greater New Orleans is founded under the leadership of virulent racist and anti-Semite, Leander Perez, a lawyer, judge, and large land-owner in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.

Between 1954 and 1960, the Louisiana legislature "interposes" itself between the state's institutions and the Federal government in an attempt to circumvent federal court rulings that voided new segregation statutes.

Two blacks are elected to the city council of Crowley, Louisiana, in Acadia Parish. They are the first blacks to hold elective office in Louisiana in over fifty years.

1955

In May, John McDonogh Day is boycotted by black students for the second consecutive year.

Dr. Martin Luther King turns down the job of chaplain at Dillard University in New Orleans. Instead, he accepts the position as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. He is twenty-seven years old.

The Montgomery bus boycott is launched on December 5, 1955, after Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., is elected head of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which organizes the boycott.

In late 1955, the remaining New Orleans public libraries are desegregated.

1956

Autherine Lucy, a black student, is admitted to University of Alabama, February 3, 1956.

Alabama outlaws NAACP, June 1, 1956.

Supreme Court rules on bus desegregation, November 13, 1956.

Home of Martin Luther King Jr. is bombed, January 30, 1956, in Montgomery, Alabama.

Between 1956 and 1959, due intimidation on the part of the White Citizens' Councils, the percentage of eligible blacks who are registered to vote in Louisiana falls from 31.7% percent to 27.5%.

At a large public meeting on May 17, 1956, the White Citizens' Council of Greater New Orleans launches an attack on the Urban League, an integrated organization devoted to developing job opportunities for blacks. Judge Leander Perez attacks the Urban League as "a communist organization" and reads aloud a list of its board members.

On May 24, 1956, Federal Judge Skelly Wright rules that all state laws requiring segregation on public transportation in New Orleans are "unconstitutional and therefore invalid."

The Louisiana legislature resurrects the "Ku Klux Klan control law of 1924" to drive the NAACP underground by requiring it to file membership lists. This is tantamount to a death sentence for many members. The NAACP is forced to suspend official operations in Louisiana for fear of reprisals.

Leander Perez begins an intensive mobilization against the desegregation of Catholic schools.

1957

Desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, August 1957-May 1959.

The U.S. Congress passes the first Civil Rights bill since 1875, August 29, 1957.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is founded in New Orleans at 2319 Third Street. A.L. Davis, a Baptist minister in New Orleans, is first vice president.

In New Orleans, the United Clubs, a confederation of Mardi Gras clubs and a musicians' union, organize a "blackout" of the carnival season in honor of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The slogan: "It is immoral for Negroes to dance in New Orleans while Negroes in Montgomery walk." Zulu, however, parades in defiance of the boycott and under grave threat. "It was the fastest parade ever," says one observer. Sixty thousand dollars are collected at Mardi Gras for the national NAACP. The success of the boycott demonstrates that blacks in the South, according to historian Adam Fairclough, "could mobilize money and people to protest segregation."

1958

On May 31, 1958, street cars and buses in New Orleans are desegregated by Federal court order. A cross is burned that night on the lawn of Skelly Wright, the Federal judge who ordered the street cars and buses desegregated. The previous day, A.L. Davis and other members of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, board buses and street cars and remove the despised race screens.

Federal Court order the admittance of the first black undergraduates to LSU.

Integration of City Park in New Orleans.

In September, two hundred blacks enter LSU-NO in its first year, making it the first fully integrated public university in the Deep South.

Greater New Orleans Bridge is constructed; interstate highway overpass built along tree lined Claiborne Avenue, destroying the traditional neighborhood of the New Orleans Creole population.

1959

Race-baiting gubernatorial campaign involving Chep Morrison, mayor of New Orleans, and arch- segregationists Willie Rainach (of the White Citizens' Council) and Jimmie Davis (of "You are my sunshine").

1960

Black students stage sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina, February 1, 1960

Sit-ins and boycotts occur all over the South and in some northern cities.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) , a militant civil rights organization, is founded, April 17, 1960.

John Kennedy is elected president; Lyndon Johnson is vice-president.

The second Civil Rights Act is signed, May 6, 1960.

In the summer of 1960, members of the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) open a chapter in New Orleans. CORE, founded in Chicago by James Farmer in 1942, is an integrated organization devoted to non-violent direct action to achieve civil rights for all people.

On March 8, 1960, two hundred black students from Dillard University march outside the college campus in New Orleans. The placards read: "Desegregation, human rights, freedom, and action without violence."

On March 28, 1960, seven black students from Southern University in Baton Rouge, encouraged by Reverend T.J. Jemison, are arrested after sitting at the segregated lunch counter of the Kress store. The students are arrested. More sit-ins follow.

On March 30, 1960, students from Southern University in Baton Rouge march to state capitol. Nine students are suspended.

Students stage boycott of classes at Southern University. Protest fails.

In New Orleans, the Dryades Street Boycott begins in April 1960. The Consumers' League of Greater New Orleans, a black organization, launches a boycott of white owned businessess on Dryades Street which are patronized almost exclusively by blacks. Blacks leaders protest merchant's refusal to employ blacks above menial level.

The Consumer League is led by Dr. Raymond B. Floyd, Dr. Henry Mitchell, Reverend Avery Alexander, and Reverend A.L. Davis. The protestors include Rudy Lombard, a Xavier student, Oretha Castle, a student at Southern in New Orleans, Hugh Murray, a white graduate student of history at Tulane, and Jerome Smith, who recently quit Southern University in Baton Rouge.

Lolis Elie, Nils Douglas, Ernest Morial, and other black attorneys provide the protesters with legal assistance.

On May 16, 1960, Federal Judge Skelly Wright orders that first grade students be permitted to enter either the nearest formerly all white school or the nearest formerly all black school "at their option." This is the first court ordered integration plan in the country.

On September 9, 1960, seven CORE members (five blacks and two whites) defy segregation laws by sitting at the lunch counter ("white only") of one of the Woolworth's stores on Canal Street. They are arrested and charged with "criminal mischief."

The next day, the NAACP Youth Group, led by Raphael Cassimire, pickets both Woolworth stores on Canal Street.

On September 16, 1960, seven protesters, including CORE field secretary Jim McCain, walk a picket line outside the shopping area of a predominantly black section of Claiborne Avenue.

Reverend Avery Alexander and four other members of the Consumer's League are arrested and go to jail with Jim McCain. Reverend A.L. Davis opens his church to CORE workshops.

The next day, Rudy Lombard and three other CORE members sit at the counter in McCrory's on Canal Street.

On November 14, 1960, after the presidential elections (in which John F. Kennedy was elected), Judge Skelly Wright orders the integration of two New Orleans public schools, both in the Ninth Ward, a mostly white working class neighborhood. That morning three girls arrive at McDonogh 19 and one girl (Ruby Bridges) at William J. Frantz School. At both schools the girls are met by jeering mobs of angry white parents. The next evening a large crowd of white people pack a White Citizens' Council meeting at Municipal Auditorium. State legislator Willie Rainach is the main speaker. He decries integration and accuses the NAACP of being a communist organization. The following morning, on November 16, 1960, hundreds of white high school students and others rampage through the downtown business district, running in and out of public buildings and assaulting blacks on the street. Some of the rioters go to City Hall and pound the locked doors; they are repelled with fire hoses.

Louisiana Governor Jimmie Davis orders the closing of the New Orleans public schools. The Orleans School Board refuses.

The Louisiana Legislature compliment the white parents who kept their students out of the two public schools. No Louisiana state senator, and only two representatives, vote against the resolution commending the parents "for their courageous stand."

A contingent of the protesting parents travel from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and parade about the legislative with an effigy of Federal Judge Skelly Wright. The legislators give the parents a thundering ovation.

Save Our Schools, an organization of white Uptown women devoted to keeping the public schools open, begin a car pool service to transport white children to McDonogh 19 and Frantz schools.

Jimmy and Daisy Gabrielle, white parents, refuse to withdraw their daughter from Frantz school. Jimmy Gabrielle is forced to quit his job as a city gas meter reader. His fellow workers, with verbal taunts and other abuse, make his life intolerable. The Gabrielle family (including six children) move to Norfolk, Virginia.

At least three other white parents lose their jobs as result of keeping their children at the integrated public schools.

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