PART IV: TERMS - - STUDENT COPY

Instructions: Identify the following individuals and terms.

1. Vergie Castle -

2. A.L. Davis -

3. Skelly Wright -

4. Jimmie Davis -

5. CORE -

6. Consumers' League -

7. Rudy Lombard -

8. Ernest "Dutch" Morial -

9. Jack Nelson -

10. Interposition -

PART IV: QUESTIONS - - TEACHER COPY

Instructions: Answer the following questions fully and in complete sentences.

1. Why did black leaders in New Orleans decide to launch a boycott of the Dryades Street stores?

In what year did the boycott begin? What group organized it?

The Dryades Street boycott, which began in early 1960, was launched because black leaders objected to the fact that no black people were employed above the menial level in the Dryades Street shopping district, although almost all of the customers were black. The black leaders formed a group, the Consumers' League, to protest job discrimination.

What did black leaders demand?

Black leaders wanted black people hired above the menial level by the Dryades Street merchants.

What was the reaction of the merchants on Dryades Street to black demands? Why did they react this way?

The merchants rejected all efforts to hire blacks above the menial level. They argued that black people would continue to shop at Dryades Street despite the threatened boycott. In addition, they said that whites would not shop in their shops if blacks worked behind the counter as clerks and managers.

What were the results of the boycott? Why?

The Consumers' League managed to obtain thirty clerk-cashier type jobs for black people in the Dryades Street shopping district. The merchants changed their mind about hiring practices when the black customers almost unanimously boycotted the stores. In other words, when the merchants began to feel the economic pinch, they changed their policies.

What was the significance of the Dryades Street boycott? Explain.

The Dryades Street Boycott, and the black people who picketed the stores, represented the first organized civil rights march in the modern history of New Orleans.

2. What was CORE's strategy? How was its philosophy different from the philosophy of the NAACP?

CORE's strategy was based on non-violent direct action. CORE believed that the NAACP relied too heavily on legal challenges rather than on militant protest actions. Members of CORE, like Rudy Lombard, wanted change and wanted change fast. In addition, NAACP Youth Group activists, a small number led by Raphael Cassimire, also organized direct action protests in New Orleans.

Specifically, why did CORE members target the stores on Canal Street? How did CORE members protest the store policies?

The Canal Street stores, like stores everywhere in the South, practiced segregation. The lunch counters were designated "white only." CORE members objected to the segregated counters. They staged sit-ins at the counters, demanding to be served.

What was the white response to the actions undertaken by black activists on Canal Street?

The CORE activists were arrested by police and charged with "criminal mischief." Group of angry whites gathered at the Canal Street stores and heaped abuse on the black activists sitting at the counters. Generally, the white population in New Orleans was both angered and surprised by the actions of black activists on Canal Street. Many white people believed that the black populace was content, and these whites did have understand what the sit-ins were all about.

What distinguished the Dryades Street Boycott from the sit-ins on Canal Street?

The Dryades Street merchants were mostly Jewish. What occurred on Dryades Street, located in a black neighborhood, was of little interest to the white business leaders of the city, some of whom were blatantly anti-Semitic. But protests on Canal Street, the largest shopping district in the city, touched pocket books closer to home. It was more of a challenge to the members of the business elite.

3. In the protest on Canal Street, the black activists were arrested by the New Orleans police department.

In the A House Divided, Giarusso says, "You're following law. You're saying that, a lot of people don't want to hear that, if you believe in the principles of government, that when you're sworn to do something and you do it and don't exceed it, then you do it. I think that's what we did. We didn't go beyond."

In contrast, Jerome Smith of CORE offers this opinion:

"A lot of people have been died or destroyed in the name of men doing their duty."

Using these two quotes as examples, answer the questions: when is it right, and when is it wrong, to obey orders?

The answer to this question depends on the student, but it must includes examples.

4. The desegregation of public schools in New Orleans was ordered to take place on November 14, 1960.

Who ordered the desegregation of the public schools?

Federal Judge Skelly Wright ordered the desegregation of the public schools.

Who was Louisiana governor at the time of the desegregation crisis? What position did he take on the issue? Why?

Jimmie Davis was Louisiana governor. He was strongly opposed to integration of the schools. A segregationist himself, Davis' position on desegregation simply reflected the will of the majority of white people in Louisiana.

How did the Louisiana governor attempt to prevent the desegregation of the public schools in New Orleans? Explain.

Davis argued that the state government controlled the state and the Federal government did not have the right to interfere. This was the "state's rights" argument. As a result, Davis maintained that the state of Louisiana did not have to accept Federal laws it did not like. The defiance of Federal laws was termed "interposition."

5. Who was the mayor of New Orleans at the start of the desegregation of the public schools? How did he respond to the crisis? Why?

Chep Morrison was mayor of New Orleans at the time. Although viewed by some as a moderate on the race question, Morrison believed firmly in segregation. He was against the integration of public schools and did not provide police protection for the black children who arrived for their first day of school on November 14, 1960. According to newspaper reporter Iris Kelso, Morrison had asked for help in solving the crisis from the city's business elite. He received none.

PART IV: QUESTIONS STUDENT COPY

Instructions: Answer the following questions fully and in complete sentences.

1. Why did black leaders in New Orleans decide to launch a boycott of the Dryades Street stores?

In what year did the boycott begin? What group organized it?

What did black leaders demand?

What was the reaction of the merchants on Dryades Street to black requests for compromise on the issue of jobs? Why did they react this way?

What were the results of the boycott? Why?

What was the significance of the Dryades Street boycott? Explain.

2. What was CORE's strategy? How was its philosophy different from the philosophy of the NAACP?

Specifically, why did CORE members target the stores on Canal Street? How did CORE members protest the store policies?

What was the white response to the actions undertaken by black activists on Canal Street?

What distinguished the Dryades Street Boycott from the sit-ins on Canal Street?

3. In the protest on Canal Street, the black activists were arrested by the New Orleans police department.

In contrast, Jerome Smith of CORE offers this opinion:

Using these two quotes as examples, answer the questions: when is it right, and when is it wrong, to obey orders?

4. The desegregation of public schools in New Orleans was ordered to take place on November 14, 1960.

Who ordered the desegregation of the public schools?

Who was Louisiana governor at the time of the desegregation crisis? What position did he take on the issue? Why?

How did the Louisiana governor attempt to prevent the desegregation of the public schools in New Orleans? Explain.

5. Who was the mayor of New Orleans at the start of the desegregation of the public schools? How did he respond to the crisis? Why?

PART V--LECTURE NOTES

"Now, strangely, we advanced to picking up the garbage."

-- Avery Alexander

Part V of A House Divided is the longest section of the documentary.

OBJECTIVE: The students should become knowledgeable about the struggle for civil rights in New Orleans from November 14, 1960, the first day of desegregation at two public schools in the city, through the events which culminated with the arrest and rough expulsion of Avery Alexander from the cafeteria in City Hall on October 31, 1963.

PREPARATION: Before the students view Part V of A House Divided, present a brief lecture to them based on the information provided below.

1. NOVEMBER 14, 1960

In March 1960, Judge Skelly Wright ordered the desegregation of public schools in Orleans Parish to take place on November 14, 1960.

After a summer of anticipation and increasingly strident statements from the governor's mansion, four black children, selected from a group which had passed the most rigorous testing, were escorted by federal marshals to the two public schools chosen for the initial effort at desegregation. Three students (Leona Tate, Tessie Prevost, and Gail Etienne) arrived at McDonogh 19 and one student (Ruby Bridges) at William Frantz. The Orleans School Board decided that these two schools would be the first to integrate. Both schools were located in the Lower Ninth Ward, a white working class neighborhood where a hostile reception was almost guaranteed.

HISTORICAL POINT: This was a time of brave actions on the part of some and ugly actions on the part of others. The four children who broke the color barrier in the New Orleans public school demonstrated uncommon courage. No experience in their young lives prepared them for the sights and sounds that greeted them outside their respective schools on the morning of November 14, 1960. The parents of the four children also demonstrated extraordinary courage. Many paid a price. For one, Ruby Bridge's father was fired from his job as a result of his daughter attending Frantz.

The vast majority of white parents kept their children home from school on the first day of integration. Other white mothers hurried to McDonogh 19 and to William Frantz to pick up their children. On November 15, 1960, the White Citizens' Council packed Municipal Auditorium with 5,000 supporters. Willie Rainach and Leander Perez urged a boycott of the integrated schools.

The aim of the White Citizens' Council and ardent segregationists was to force the closing of the schools. Teachers who did not honor the boycott were subjected to economic threats. Parents who sent their children to school were treated similarly.

QUOTE: Kit Senter, a member of Save Our Schools, an organization of white women devoted to keeping the schools open, is quoted in A House Divided describing the handful of parents who continued to send their children to the integrated schools:

They were stoned in the street. They lost their jobs, their children were attacked by former friends.

Leontine Luke, a NAACP official who helped protect the black children enrolled in the two schools, is quoted in Righteous Lives: "There were other people who, because they left their children in school where Ruby was, lost their jobs. I'm speaking of people of the white race, who left their children in school. They lost their jobs. People let them go. You know, I figured it was mean because they had no control over it. The law had passed. The courts had passed the law. And firing these men who had jobs so that their families would be in need, I don't think, you know, was the proper thing."

On November 15, 1960, a mob of white people, many of them teenagers, stormed through the central business district and then attacked the School Board offices and City Hall.

Jimmie Davis, governor of the state, declared November 14, 1960, a state holiday, thereby excusing white children from attending school on the first day of integration.

QUOTE: A white mother is quoted in A House Divided discussing the first day of integration: "My little boy is in the room, Mrs. Mize's room, with the three little niggers. I didn't send him Monday. The governor said it is a holiday, and I did abide by him. He is the governor of this state."

HISTORICAL POINT: Language, or the selective use of language, is very much a part of racist thought. A single word can de-humanize another people, depicting he or she as "the other," as inferior, as less than human.

QUESTION: What words do you use to describe people different from yourself? What words do you hear others use? How do words serve to de-humanize other people?

2. CHEERLEADERS

One of the most disagreeable aspects of the desegregation crisis in New Orleans was the appearance of a group of white women who described themselves as the Cheerleaders. Vigorously protesting integration, these women carried signs equating integration with communism and signs quoting the Bible, and hurled racial epithets and spittle at the black children entering the two schools.

QUOTE: In a surrendipitous twist, the writer John Steinbeck happened to be in New Orleans at the time of the crisis. He observed the rancorous crowd outside of the two public schools and later described the angry women in his book Travels With Charlie.

Now I've heard the words bestial and filth and degenerate, but there was something far worse than dirt, a kind of frightening 'witches' Sabbath.' These are not mothers, not even women. They were crazy actors playing to a crazy audience.

Una Gaillot was the leader of the Cheerleaders. She says, "The parents came to me and asked me to help them. I helped them. I picketed and I would tell the ladies how they should do it, very lady-like of which they did."

In A House Divided, Gaillot responds to the "witches' Sabbath" quote in Steinbeck's book: "Now when he [Steinbeck] talks about a 'witches' Sabbath,' let's clarify one thing. Every lady down there was a lady, and Chief Joseph Giarusso is there to admit it."

QUOTE: Iris Kelso, the newspaper reporter, covered the desegregation of the two public schools: "I was working outside Frantz school and it hurt me so much to be there and see these children brought through these lines of jeering people in these dreadful 'fish wife women' and I saw them spit on those children."

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