Turn by turn directions can be found here: https://goo.gl/maps/rU3GfnoTBvdh9xbQ8
Stop A: Plessy v. Ferguson Historic Site
Homer Plessy was 30 years old when he waged a crucial act of resistance while boarding a passenger train at Press and Royal. The year was 1892, and two years prior, Louisiana’s Separate Car Act had upheld segregation on intrastate railroads. Plessy joined the Comité de Citoyens (Committee of Citizens) to challenge the discriminatory act. He had a lighter complexion and was therefore in a unique position to try and disrupt Jim Crow. Following his arrest, Plessy argued to the State Supreme Court that the law violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. The case ultimately escalated to the US Supreme Court in 1896, which ruled that segregation was lawful as long as conditions were “separate but equal.” This ruling authorized over 50 more years of segregation until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Along with the Plessy v. Ferguson historical marker, the train that still runs along Press Street is a poignant reminder of Homer Plessy’s resistance against an unjust system.
Stop B: McRory’s Five and Dime (1005 Canal)
1005 Canal Street used to house McRory’s Five and Dime, where a critical lunch counter sit-in took place in 1960. This protest against segregation was organized by the Congress of Racial Equality, who were inspired by the hard-won success of the first lunch counter sit-in that was staged in Greensboro, North Carolina earlier that year. Change was far from immediate. It wasn’t until November of 1962 that the Supreme Court overturned criminal charges against the protestors, establishing a precedent that affirmed the students’ civil rights.
Stop C: S. Rampart & Canal (Woolworth’s)
This site was home to Woolworth’s department store, where students staged the first local lunch counter sit-in in 1960 to combat segregation. Three years later, activists boycotted Woolworth’s, insisting that they employ African American workers. Woolworth’s refused to comply until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enforced in 1965.
Stop D: City Hall
The year is 1963. Civil rights activists have spent countless hours organizing and undertaking sit-in protests to urge the city to uphold civil rights on both sides of the lunch counter, for Black customers and workers. Still, many places remain segregated — even City Hall’s cafeteria. CORE, SCLC, and the NAACP band together to organize a protest beginning in Shakespeare Park and culminating in front of City Hall. Looking back now, the turn-out was strong: 10,000 African American protestors and 300 white protestors showed up to march. That winter, City Hall finally integrated the cafeteria.
Stop E: Southern Christian Leadership Conference Pavilion Project
This outdoor museum is called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Pavilion Project. First unveiled in 2017, it honors the visionary leadership of the SCLC, which was officially incorporated at New Zion Baptist Church, on the corner of Third and Lasalle, on Valentine’s Day in 1957. This organization of Baptist pastors and activists, among them Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., led dozens of nonviolent actions in New Orleans and across the South. Though the SCLC first gathered in Atlanta, the organization’s connection to New Orleans can be credited to Reverend T.K. Jemison of Baton Rouge and attorney Israel M. Augustine of New Orleans, who became part of the SCLC’s board. This interpretive site spotlights the SCLC’s founders and the milestones they helped bring to fruition during the civil rights movement in New Orleans./
Stop F: Freedom House
In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality pioneered the Freedom Rides, a series of non-violent protests using interstate transportation. Dozens of Freedom Riders passing through New Orleans found themselves on the doorstep of this house, the former residence of civil rights leader Oretha Castle Haley and her sister Doris and mother Virgie. Together, they fed the travel-weary Freedom Riders and used their home to host civil rights organizing meetings throughout the local civil rights movement.
Stop G: Dooky Chase
Dooky Chase’s Restaurant is famous for their Creole Gumbo, their legendary proprietor Leah Chase, and for the role the restaurant played in the local civil rights movement. Beginning in the 1950s and continuing through the 1960s, activists held meetings at Dooky Chase’s. It was a safe space to discuss strategy and plan protests. The tumultuous political climate dictated that meetings be planned in secret, especially during the Freedom Rides of 1961, and when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was in town. These gatherings were kept under wraps for good reason: in 1965, a homemade bomb thrown from a moving car detonated in the restaurant. Fortunately, no patrons were injured.
Stop H: Knights of Peter Claver
Though you may have passed this building en route to the river countless times, not everyone knows that the Knights of Peter Claver is the largest historically African American Catholic lay organization in the US. The local NAACP chapter was also headquartered here. Between 1963 and 1965, the NAACP Youth Council organized a monumental stand-off with discriminatory Canal Street businesses from this building.
Stop I: Ruby Bridges Mural
Ruby Bridges was one of the first African American students to attend the newly desegregated New Orleans public schools in 1960. She attended the all-white William Frantz Elementary School, while Leona Tate, Tessie Prevost, and Gail Etienne attended McDonogh 19. Bridges was a first grader when she braved a hateful mob of white segregationists on her way to William Frantz, the crowd screaming racist slurs, throwing tomatoes, and threatening her family. Federal marshals accompanied Bridges on that day, and in the days that followed as this white mob continued to torment Bridges and the other three students (who became known as the McDonogh Three).
This mural is not the first work of art to immortalize Ruby Bridges’ courage. In 1964, Norman Rockwell captured Bridges’ long walk to school in the painting, The Problem We All Live With, a poignant piece of social commentary. It’s a problem we still live with today. Ruby Bridges still lives in New Orleans, and you can read an interview with her and watch her speak about her experiences here.
Dave Dennis, civil rights activist who organized with the Congress of Racial Equality speaks on the civil rights movement.
Further Reading
