PART III - - LECTURE NOTES

"We know we have to do something."

-- Arthur Chapital of the NAACP, calling for a boycott of McDonogh Day in 1954

Part III of A House Divided covers the period of history from Reconstruction (and the attendant violence) to 1960.

OBJECTIVE:

In Part III, the students should understand the importance of the two Supreme Court decisions: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896); and Brown v. Board of Education (1954). In addition, the students should become familiar with the first efforts towards achieving civil rights in New Orleans, beginning with the law suits filed against the Orleans Parish School Board by A.P. Tureaud of the NAACP (1951) and continuing with the following events: the desegregation of public libraries; the McDonogh Day Boycott; the desegregation of buses and street cars.

Part III ends prior to 1960, the year of the school desegregation crisis in New Orleans.

PREPARATION:

Before the students view Part III of A House Divided, present a brief lecture to them based on the historical background information provided below.

1. RECONSTRUCTION

In the beginning of Part III, there is a brief reference to "the end of Reconstruction and the withdrawal of Federal troops."

HISTORICAL POINT:

In New Orleans, Reconstruction began with the fall of the city to Admiral Farragut in late April 1862. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863) did not free slaves in the regions of Louisiana under Federal control, which included most of the River parishes and also New Orleans. The 1864 Louisiana Constitution, sanctioned by President Lincoln, did not grant black people (men, in this instance) the right to vote. In a March 1864 letter to Governor Michael Hahn of Louisiana, Lincoln referred to "elective franchise" and added, "I barely suggest for your private consideration, whether some of the colored people may not be let in [to the forthcoming constitutional convention], as, for instance, those very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks."

Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865 shortly after Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomatox, Virginia. His vice-president, democrat Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, became President. He was reluctant to impose racial change on the defeated South, the supposed fruit of victory. In July 1866, a massacre of Republican legislators and others (black and white) took place at the Mechanic's Institute on Dryades and Canal Streets (the present-day site of the Fairmont Hotel).

The legislators had met in hopes of re-writing the 1864 state constitution to permit black suffrage. The slaughter, in which 137 were killed and several hundred wounded, shocked northern public opinion and led to Radical Reconstruction, the period from 1867 until (in Louisiana) 1877. This was a brief period in Louisiana history in which black people in the state exercised their political and civil rights in the face of violent white opposition.

On September 14, 1874, several thousand armed whites known as the White League attacked the Metropolitan Police force, an integrated militia supporting the Republican administration. The White League wanted to overthrow the Republican administration in the state and restore white rule. The Metropolitan Police were arrayed before the Customs House near the bottom of Canal Street. They were routed. The twelve minute conflict, with its distinctly racial edge, has been heralded as the Battle of Liberty Place by white supremacists ever since.

White conservative rule in Louisiana, under the Democratic Party, was re-established in 1877 when the Federal government removed troops from the state. The brief period in Louisiana during which black people enjoyed political and civil rights was over.

QUOTE:

In A House Divided, Duplain W. Rhodes recalls the story handed down to him about the violence meted out to his family in Thibodaux, Louisiana. It is of note that the school teacher was killed. Why the teacher? As black people who owned land, the Rhodes family was a magnet for attacks by white vigilantes. The quote from Duplain W. Rhodes follows:

If you owned land, you had to get out, and the easiest thing to do is to kill you. Just hung him if you could catch him. They got rid of a school teacher, left the body on the street with sign on it as a warning to all blacks in that location. My daddy had to make himself not to be found. He went into the woods. My mother started selling what we had. My daddy came at night and took my mother in a wagon and a horse. They left there and went here (New Orleans) from Thibodaux.

QUESTION:

At another point in A House Divided, Judge Revius Ortique repeats a question often asked of him: " Why did we wait so long?'" Ask the students the same question: why did black people "wait" so long?

ANSWER:

In response to the question, Judge Ortique said, "...I suppose the answer comes very quickly. We were not prepared." In addition, a fundamental reason for waiting "so long" was the effective use of violence, terror, and intimidation by whites.

The example of the Duplain family is one among countless examples.

2. PLESSY V. FERGUSON

In 1877, white conservative rule returned to Louisiana. Francis T. Nicholls, an ex-Confederate general who lost an arm and a leg in the battles in Virginia, became Democratic governor. The same class of people, if not the same people, who had ruled Louisiana before the Civil War were now once again in control. The Redeemers, as they styled themselves, promised full equality to black citizens, but these promises were not kept. Slowly but surely, the civil rights blacks had enjoyed during the heyday of Reconstruction were whittled away. The white supremacists were cautious; they did not care to risk the return of Federal troops to the state and thus did not immediately deprive the black population of all of its rights. The process of so-called Redemption was a slow but steady one.

In 1892, Homer Plessy, a light skinned black gentleman, was ousted from his seat on the train from New Orleans to Covington, Louisiana. In a deliberate test of his rights as a black person, Plessy sat in a section for "whites only." After being arrested, Plessy filed suit against the railroad company. The suit reached district court in New Orleans, where the Federal Judge, John Ferguson, decided in favor of the railroad company. In appeal, the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. On May 18, 1896, the Court, in Plessy v. Ferguson, upheld Louisiana's laws regarding public transportation, stating that separate facilities for the two races were constitutional as long as the facilities were "equal." This was later referred to as the "separate but equal" doctrine.

Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark decision, and it effectively ushered in the period of legal segregation, often referred to as Jim Crow segregation.

QUOTE:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Holland wrote in his dissenting opinion:

The destinies of the two races in this country are indissolubly linked together, and the interests of both require the common government of all should not permit seeds of race hate planted under the sanction of law.

QUESTION:

This statement by Justice Holland touches upon one of the profound question of the age: whether or not the different races can live together in relative peace and harmony. Ask the students if they agree or disagree with the statement by Justice Holland that "the two races are indissolubly linked"? If so, why? If not, why not?

ANSWER:

The answer to the question rests with the opinion of the individual student. Point out to the student, however, some basic facts, namely, that neither of the races intends to pack up and leave the country. In this sense, the races "are indissolubly linked."

3. A.P. TUREAUD

A.P. Tureaud, a black lawyer, was local counsel for the New Orleans branch of the NAACP in the 1930's, '40's and 50's. He challenged segregation in the courts. In 1951, he filed suit in federal court on behalf of Oliver Bush, a black man in New Orleans who wanted his son Earl to attend a neighborhood school which happened to be all-white. The case was dismissed in 1952, but on appeal it reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which chose instead to rule on another case, Brown v. the Board of Education, in 1954.

In 1948, Tureaud filed suit against the Orleans Parish School Board in the effort to have black teachers receive the same salary as white teachers. He won the suit, an early victory in the Civil Rights struggle. Hitherto, blacks had received less than half the salary of their white counterparts.

In the aftermath of the Brown v. the Board decision, the White Citizens' Council in New Orleans, led by Leander Perez, attempted to destroyed the NAACP in Louisiana. Under a 1924 law designed to unmask the Ku Klux Klan, the NAACP was required to publicize its membership list. This was the equivalent of signing the death warrants for all its members. Tureaud was forced to resign from the NAACP or face being disbarred from the law profession, and the NAACP suspended activities in New Orleans for the immediate future. NAACP activities, however, were continued by "Voter Leagues."

In 1957, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was founded in New Orleans during a visit to the city by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who for a time had entertained the thought of becoming chaplain at Dillard University. The SCLC was based on Ghandian principles of non-violence and direct action. It was at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement in the South and throughout the nation.

4. BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court issued its unanimous decision in Brown v. the Board of Education. The decision established that "separate but equal" treatment accorded to blacks and to whites (of Plessy v. Ferguson) was unconstitutional, and, specifically, that segregation in public education was unconstitutional. Chief Justice Earl Warren said: "We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

Brown v. the Board was greeted by supporters of civil rights as the first step in a long battle to achieve the full rights of citizenship for black Americans.

QUOTE:

In A House Divided, Benjamin Hooks, former executive director of the NAACP, had this to say about the Brown v. the Board decision:

The victory was tremendous. It was the most important since the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. It was the most important psychological victory since Emancipation.

QUESTION:

Ask the students to define the Emancipation Proclamation, as well as the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.

ANSWER:

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. It freed the slaves in the states then in rebellion. The Proclamation did not free the slaves in the territories then occupied by Federal troops in Louisiana, including "the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. Johns, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafouche, St. Mary, St. Martin,and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans."

Lincoln wrote in the Emancipation Proclamation: "...I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons."

Immediately after the Civil War, many states continued to deny black citizens basic constitutional rights, including the right to vote.

The 13th Amendment, in 1865, stated: "No slavery shall exist within the United States or in any lands under its control. "

The 14th Amendment, in 1868, stated: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its law are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they live. All former slaves shall be considered citizens. They shall be entitled to the same protection of the Constitution as all other citizens." It extended constitutional rights and liberties to blacks and to other people previously denied those rights. Of critical importance was the fact that the 14th Amendment made the federal government the protector of those rights, an arrangement which led to the conflict over "state's rights."

The 15th Amendment, in 1870, stated: "The right of a citizen of the United States to vote shall not be denied because he was once an indentured servant or a slave. The right to vote cannot be denied because of race or color."

Ask the students why NAACP director Benjamin Hooks viewed the Brown v the Board decision as the "the most important psychological victory since Emancipation." Specifically, what does Hooks mean by "psychological victory? "

A possible answer: the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. the Board established that black people should be treated equally in the field of education, and this offered the possibility that education would empower black people to confront and overcome the disadvantages and problems before them. Brown v. the Board represented a light at the end of the tunnel, a tunnel through which no light had hiherto been seen. White supremacists had traditionally denied black children the opportunity to be educated in the calculated hope that an ignorant populace would be unwilling to confront the unfairness of Jim Crow segregation.

HISTORICAL POINT:

The segregationists of the South condemned the Brown v. the Board decision in vitriolic terms and labeled May 17, 1954 as "Black Monday." Senator James O. Eastland of Mississippi said flatly that the white people of the South did not have to obey the decisions of the Supreme Court. He urged Massive Resistance to integration. White Citizens' Councils were founded throughout the South, beginning in Indianola, Mississippi. The Councils comprised the so-called elite of the white communities (the doctors, bankers, lawyers, store owners, etc), and their purpose was to halt desegregation. Black people who challenged the system were threatened with severe economic reprisals, such as having the mortgage called in or losing jobs as school teachers or as a maids.

In New Orleans, one of the leading figures behind the establishment the Whites Citizens' Council of Greater New Orleans was Leander Perez, a owner of vast land holdings and oil wealth in St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes, which he ruled like a personal fiefdom. Perez railed against blacks and Jews with the same venom. Emphasize to the students that this was a time in American history of intense Red-baiting. The tactic of smearing opponents by labelling them communists was practiced to a tremendous degree. Perez argued that integration was a communist plot to weaken the nation by promoting race-mixing. Indeed, a characteristic slogan of the White Citizens' Council said, "Integration is the Southern expression of communism."

Perez, a lawyer and judge, was hired by the Orleans Parish School Board after the Brown decision to help prevent desegregation. In this he failed, but his angry tongue inflamed passions on both sides of the racial divide.

QUESTION: What were the similarities and the differences between the White Citizens' Councils and the Ku Klux Klan?

ANSWER:

The leadership of the White Citizens' Councils comprised the economic and social elite of the white communities, in contrast to the Ku Klux Klan, which mostly comprised farmers and workers.

Whatever the techniques employed, be it economic reprisal by the White Citizens' Council in the form of an unfair dismissal from a job or violence by the Klan in the form of a lynching or a cross burned on a front lawn, the intent of both the Citizens' Councils and the Klan was the same: to prevent the slightest change to the caste system that was Jim Crow segregation.

5. MCDONOGH DAY BOYCOTT

One of the first organized protests of the Civil Rights struggle in New Orleans was the McDonogh Day Boycott in May 1954. John McDonogh was a parsimonious eccentric who died a a generous philanthropist, leaving an endowment to the public schools in Baltimore, Maryland, and in New Orleans. He was a slave holder, but one with a curious twist: he educated a handful of his slaves, freed them (manumission), and helped them establish a model community at McDonoghville in present-day Algiers. He did this in the hopes of preparing the former slaves for a new life in Liberia, West Africa.

In May of each year, a timeless ritual was played out: students from the segregated school system gathered at Lafayette Park in downtown New Orleans to pay homage to John McDonogh. They placed flowers at the foot of his statue, the different bands played, the students sung the McDonogh Ode, and finally each delegation picked up a symbolic " key to the city" from the mayor who stood across the street at Gallier Hall, which was then the City Hall.

The white students, according to the dictates of segregation, were the first to deposit their flowers at the McDonogh statue, the first to sing, and the first to receive the keys of the city from the mayor. The black children, in contrast, often had to wait in the hot sun while the white students finished their ceremony and only then did the ceremony for black students begin. It was a subtle act of denigration, typical of the system. Nonetheless, McDonogh Day was an occasion that stood out in the minds of all children.

QUOTE:

In A House Divided, Revius Ortique recalled that"as a child he was proud to participate" in the McDonogh Day ceremonies. He enjoyed dressing up for the occasion; he enjoyed the pomp and circumstance; he was young and did not understand the degrading symbolism; he felt special even within the constraints of segregation.

In 1954, the black teachers' associations protested the discrimination evinced at the McDonogh Day ceremonies. Arthur Chapital, director of the local branch of the NAACP and a postal employee ,called for a boycott of McDonogh Day. He said, "We know we have to do something." Chapital urged Revius Ortique to make radio broadcasts urging black parents to keep their children home on McDonogh Day. Ortique, then vice president at large of the Louisiana Council of Labor and also an employee of the state Department of Labor, agreed, and his radio broadcasts began a life of civil rights activism. A.P. Tureaud, A.L. Davis, and other black leaders supported the boycott.

In May 1954, white students from Orleans Parish met at Lafayette Park and honored John McDonogh in the traditional manner. The crowd of dignitaries and others awaited the sound of one of the bands from a black school. The sound was not forthcoming. The boycott was almost total. Only thirty-four of the city's 32,000 black students showed up. One black principal appeared; she never regained a leadership role in the black community.

The boycott was effective. The mayor of the city, Chep Morrison, stood in front of Gallier Hall with 32 keys to the city in his hand but no school delegation to bestow them on. The boycott lasted for the next two years.

QUOTE:

Revius Ortique, one of the organizers of the boycott, was impressed at the almost total compliance of the black community in honoring the boycott. In A House Divided, he says, "I would say the McDonogh Day incident was the first concerted challenge that color crossed all segments of the black community, and we spoke as one." This quote reflects the fact that the black community in New Orleans had deep cultural, class, and political divisions. What were they? How were they overcome? Do they exist today?

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