PART I: TERMS -- TEACHER'S COPY

1. Avery Alexander

- Reverend Avery Alexander was one of the foremost blacks leaders of the Civil Rights struggle in New Orleans. He helped lead the Dryades Street Boycott and the desegregation of public facilities in New Orleans, including the cafeteria in City Hall. In recent years, he has led the protest of the Liberty Place monument which celebrates the 1874 victory of the White League in New Orleans. Alexander is currently a state legislator from New Orleans.

2. Moon Landrieu

- Moon Landrieu was a freshman legislator at the state capitol in Baton Rouge during the early years of the Civil Rights movement. Virtually alone among white legislators, Landrieu voted against the "hate bills" which the legislature passed in the effort to thwart the desegregation of public facilities and public schools. In 1970, Landrieu was elected mayor of New Orleans and brought black people into city government for the first time since Reconstruction.

3. Dave Treen

- During the Civil Rights period, Dave Treen, typical of the majority of white people in the South, took a strong stand against desegregation. He served as Louisiana governor from 1980-1984, the first Republican to occupy that office since Reconstruction.

4. Andrew Young

- Andrew Young was born in New Orleans and attended Gilbert Academy on St. Charles Ave. In the 1950's, he became one of Dr. Martin Luther King's principle lieutenants and was present in Memphis, Tennessee, when Dr. King was assassinated in April 1968. In 1976, President Jimmy Carter appointed Young the nation's representative at the United Nations.

5. Jim Crow

- The term Jim Crow is derived from an early 19th century white performer who performed unflattering portrayals of black people. His depiction of a lame black man named Jim Crow evolved into a racist synonym of the "comic" black life style. By the early 1900's Jim Crow symbolized legal segregation in American life. Most public and many private facilities practiced total separation of the races.

6. Gilbert Academy

- Gilbert Academy was a private high school in New Orleans attended by the sons of relatively prosperous black families. It was located at the site of present-day De La Salle High School at 5318 St. Charles Ave. Gilbert Academy operated under the auspices of the Methodist Church between 1873 and 1949. The school is credited with both educating and inspiring its students, including Andrew Young, Tom Dent, and others.

7. Segregation

- The system of legal segregation, often termed Jim Crow segregation, governed the relations between white and black people in the South (and elsewhere) from the 1890's until the Civil Rights movement of the 1950's and 60's. The system decreed separation of the races in virtually every aspect of life. Segregation was based on the premise that black people were inferior to whites and should therefore occupy inferior position in society. The system gave white people every available privilege.This was a major reason why many white people fought desegregation tooth and nail.

8. Stereotype

- A stereotype is a generalization about the characteristics of a group of people that is based on the actions or characteristics that describe some of the people within that group. The stereotype is an unfair effort to explain the acts of some by blaming an entire people.

9. Scapegoat

- People often explain their own shortcomings or failures by blaming somebody else. This 'somebody else' is referred to as a scapegoat. The age old practice of "scapegoating" reflects the inability of many people to criticize their own behavior.

PART I: TERMS -- STUDENT'S COPY

Instructions:

Identify the following individuals or terms.

1. Avery Alexander -

2. Moon Landrieu -

3. Dave Treen -

4. Andrew Young -

5. Jim Crow -

6. Gilbert Academy -

7. Segregation -

8. Stereotype -

9. Scapegoat-

PART I: QUESTIONS -- TEACHER'S COPY

Instructions:

Answer the following questions in complete sentences.

1. Define the term segregation as it applied to the South before the modern Civil Rights movement.

Segregation was a system installed by the dominate white conservative population in the 1890's. Laws prohibited the mixing of the races and attempted to keep them physically apart. Black people were delegated to an inferior role in life.

2. Who was Jim Crow?

In the early 19th century, a white performer depicted a lame black man named Jim Crow. The term Jim Crow became a synonym of "comic" black behavior, and in the early 20th century the term came to symbolize the system of legal segregation.

3. Based on what the individuals in Part I of the documentary have said, list three examples of segregation in New Orleans before the Civil Rights period?

a) Blacks could not sit at the counter and order a meal at the various stores on Canal St., including Woolworth's, McCrory's, and Kress's. The counter was designated "white only."

b) The wards at Charity Hospital were divided between white and black patients, and strict separation of blood was also enforced. In other words, white patients could not be injected with blood from a black person, nor vice a versa.

c) As Sybil Morial attests in the documentary, a black person had to bring all sorts of identification in order to obtain a driver's license, while a white person did not. This was a petty form of harassment based upon segregation of the races.

4. Of the three examples of segregation you have listed, which example do you believe was the most harmful? Explain.

The answer to this question is the student's opinion, but the opinion must be supported by facts and examples.

5. Which example of segregation, in your opinion, was the most subtle? Explain.

Personal opinion.

Which was the most brutal? Explain.

Personal Opinion.

6. What was the purpose of segregation? Explain, and offer examples.

The purpose of segregation was to keep the races separate from one another as much as possible. The ultimate fear of the white supremacists was (and is) the mixing of the races. Segregation delegated black people to an inferior position, and the daily humiliations of segregation served to enforce the point of view that black people were "less" than white people. It also served to diminish the dignity and self-worth of black people. This was a calculated effort to weaken black people and to force them to accept the inherent inequalities of the system. Segregation granted white people inherent advantages in almost every aspect of life. Being a white male was one of the largest affirmative action programs in history.

What was the meaning behind segregation? Explain, and offer examples.

The majority of white people appeared to view black people as inferior. This was reflected in the system of legal segregation, which forced black people to live in a separate world in which everything was inferior to the world in which white people lived.

PART I: QUESTIONS - STUDENT COPY

Instructions:

Answer the following questions in complete sentences.

1. Define the term segregation as it applied to the South before the Civil Rights movement.

2. Who was Jim Crow?

3. Based on what the individuals in Part I of the documentary have said, list three examples of segregation in New Orleans before the Civil Rights period?

3. Of the three examples of segregation you have listed, which example do you believe was the most harmful. Explain.

4. Which example of segregation, in your opinion, was the most subtle? Explain.
Which was the most brutal? Explain.

5. What was the purpose of segregation? Explain, and offer examples.

PART II--LECTURE NOTES

"It was a way of life, right?"

-- Joe Giarusso, New Orleans police superintendent, on segregation

Part II of A House Divided begins with a scene lifted from the 1954 film A Streetcar Named Desire. It is an appropriate introduction. In New Orleans, the history of the street cars reflects the history of race-relations, and the quiet desegregation of the streetcars (May 30, 1958) represented an important step in the desegregation of the city.

OBJECTIVE:

The purpose of Part II is to explain how segregation was practiced on street cars and buses in New Orleans. In addition, Part II explores the subtle use of language in the segregated South and the unsubtle use of violence. Both had distinct purposes. Finally, the interviewees in Part II make it very clear in their comments that segregation was accepted by many people (whites approvingly and blacks begrudgingly) as the "natural" way of life.

PREPARATION:

Before the students view Part II of A House Divided, the teacher should present a short lecture to them based on the historical background information provided below.

1. STREET CARS

Public transportation was one of the early arenas of the struggle for civil rights. In December 1955, Rosa Parks, a black woman in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat to a white person on a public bus. Her action sparked the beginning of the modern Civil Rights movement. A majority of the black population in Montgomery elected to boycott all city buses, and the person chosen to lead the boycott was a twenty-seven year old newcomer to Montgomery, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

QUESTION:

Why was public transportation an early battleground in the Civil Rights struggle?

ANSWER:

There are many answers to this question. One of them is the simple fact that segregation on the buses (and street cars) defined the unequal relationship between white and black in ways that could not be avoided. It was a daily, or twice daily, act of humiliation. Rosa Parks was well versed in the nascent fight for civil rights. She had worked for the NAACP. Yet sometimes people are motivated less by intellectual arguments and more by tired feet. Rosa Parks, traveling home after a long day, was physically tired. Segregation required her to get up and move to another seat.That was an outrage.

Remind the students of the 1896 Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. The landmark case involving Homer Plessy, a light-skinned black man, resulted after Plessy purposely sat in a 'whites only' coach of the train between New Orleans and Covington, Louisiana. After he was ejected from the train, he sued the railroad. The case went to the Supreme Court, which established that "separate but equal" public facilities were constitutional.

HISTORICAL POINT:

In New Orleans, the street car has reflected the temper of race-relations for almost two centuries.

During ante-bellum (or pre-Civil War) times, when the street cars were pulled by mules, white people (free people of color and slaves) rode in a street car by themselves while black people were delegated to a separate street car, the so-called "Star" street car named in the dubious honor of the "star" that distinguished it.

During the Civil War, the street cars remained segregated after Federal troops occupied New Orleans in April 1862. Conflicts erupted when black soldiers in the Federal army were denied admittance to the street car of their choice. With the advent of Radical Reconstruction in 1867, the "Star" street cars were discontinued, and both white and black began riding in the same street car. This arrangement lasted until 1902 when the "Star" street cars were reintroduced as the age of Jim Crow segregation solidified its grip.

The "Star" street car eventually faded from use when the novelty arose of both white and black people riding in the same street car but in different sections of the street car. White people sat in the front and black people in the back.

HISTORICAL POINT:

For much of the 20th century, white and black people were separated in the street cars by the race screen, a movable sign planted into two holes on the back of the seats. It stated "colored only" on one side and "white only" on the other. Any white person, even a child, could lift the race screen from its position and place it in a new position further back in the street car and all the black people, including the elderly, had to get up and relocate to a seat behind the race screen.

The diverse mix of people in New Orleans caused unique problems for the conductors of street cars and the drivers (or motor men) of buses. Not infrequently, the conductor or driver could not distinguish who was white and who was black, and some light-skinned black people "passed as white" and sat in the front of the street car in the section designated "white only."

QUOTE: In the documentary, Clarence Jupiter of Xavier University offered this comment: New Orleans "has the blackest white people and the whitest black people of any place in the country."

The race screen was a symbol of inferior status imposed on black people. It was a despised tool of segregation. In the documentary, Jerome Smith, a black activist at the forefront of desegregation efforts in New Orleans, tells the story of the time he seized the "race screen" and threw it on the floor. The full quote is repeated here:

QUOTE:

"I was on the bus. I took the sign and pitched it in the floor which was the same thing I had seen my father do. The driver told me to move. I did move, and he said he was going to call the police. I was crying, and this old women, an old black women, told the driver and some of the white people, Please don't call the police. I'm going to take this boy home and see that his grandmother bust his behind. This boy gives too much trouble,' and when we got off the bus with this old lady she took me to the back side of Autolec store and she grabbed me and hugged me and kissed me and said she was proud of me."

QUESTION:

Why is this quote significant? What does it tell us about segregation?

ANSWER:

This quote demonstrates how some black people defied the laws of segregation. It also demonstrates that "this old lady" understood precisely how to play the game of survival under segregation. She acted one way on the bus and another way a safe distance from the bus. Why? Note that Jerome Smith "pitched" the race screen to the floor as he had seen his father do. The impact of his father's example on Jerome Smith cannot be overemphasized. The example of parents, the example of teachers, the example of respected elders, all are very important and all must be recognized as such. As Albert Schweitzer said, "Example is not the main thing influencing others. It is the only thing."

The New Orleans street cars and the public buses were officially desegregated on May 30, 1958, as a result of a federal court order issued by Judge Skelly Wright. The race screen was removed from the every day life of the city. The holes on the back of the seats in which the race screen had been positioned have since been filled in. The last hint of the race screen has disappeared.

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