N.O. civil rights film turns 30

17th November 2014   ·   0 Comments

By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer

Activists gather to celebrate Civil Rights Movement

More than 150 civil rights activists and movement participants came together to celebrate and commemorate the 30th anniversary of “A House Divided.” The Xavier University documentary is the quintessential film on the Civil Rights Movement in New Orleans. Sponsors of the event included The Haley Foundation, Rhodes Funeral Homes, Dooky Chase’s Restaurant, among others.

The brainchild of Sybil Morial, a retired director of student programs at Xavier University, the film captures the voices and images of those who risked it all in the battle for equality. Narrator James Earl Jones’ booming voice calls us to watch, comprehend, and learn of historic events that must never be repeated. Xavier colleague Burrell Ware directed the film and found invaluable footage to tell the story of New Orleans’ part in the nation’s civil rights movement.

Civil rights lawyers, judges, and movement members recently greeted each other warmly at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant, during a pre-screening reception. Restaurant owners, Edgar “Dooky” Chase Jr. and renowned chef Leah Chase fed civil rights advocates who challenged a rabidly racist government system, white citizen councils, and businesses that took African Americans’ money, while subjecting them to the U.S. apartheid system called Jim Crow. The restaurant was a major stop on New Orleans’ Underground Rail­road. Virgie Castle, the mother of Oretha Castle Haley, worked at the restaurant. Both are featured are featured in “A House Divided.”

African-American celebrities ate at Dooky’s during the dark days of segregation. Ray Charles and others dined in quiet elegance. Today, the restaurant counts Presidents Obama and Bush among its guests. Chef Leah Chase is now immortalized in Disney’s The Princess and the Frog. Mrs. Chase was the inspiration for the character Tiana.

The screening of “A House Divided” followed at the Carver Theater. The newly renovated Carver was one of a few theaters that served the African-American community during segregation. As a young child in the sixth ward, this writer remembers the live midnight concerts that followed the movies.

“A House Divided” is narrated by actor James Earl Jones and features a foreword by Xavier Presi­dent Norman C. Francis and interviews and footage of the late Rev­e­rend Avery Alexander, including rare footage of the legislator being dragged up the steps of the City Hall cafeteria by racist cops enforcing segregation laws. Interviews with Jerome Smith and Rudy Lombard, CORE members (Congress of Racial Equality), Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Revius Ortique, sociologist Daniel Thompson, Reverend William Adams, SCLC, Judge Israel Augustine, former U.S. Senator Russell Long, former Governor Dave Treen, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Xavier’s Dr. Clarence Jupiter, former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, a New Orleanian and aide to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Duplain W. Rhodes, Jr., funeral home magnate, and others are wrapped around footage of the era.

Viewers saw and heard the late segregationist Governor Jimmy Davis, “lips dripping with interposition,” (as Martin Luther King, Jr. once said of Southern governors), trying to stop the integration of Louisiana’s public schools. A white woman who organized anti-desegregation protests, is on film proudly explaining they didn’t want their children in school with “niggahs.” But the poignant testimony of whites including Rosa Keller, the late philanthropist and civil rights advocate, Iris Kelso, the Times-Picayune reporter, who covered school desegregation, Judge Skelly Wright, who ordered enforcement of federal desegregation, laws and former Mayor Maurice “Moon” Land­rieu represent whites who advocated for justice and equality. They spoke and about the devastation wrought by confederates, who had yet to concede the first Civil War.

After the film, viewers listened to a discussion about the film and the civil rights movement in New Orleans. Okyeame Haley, the eldest son of Oretha Castle Haley and the event’s master of ceremonies, introduced panelists Sybil Morial, Attorney Lolis Elie, who represented civil rights protesters, Raphael Cassimere, Jr., Ph.D, retired UNO professor and past president of the NAACP Youth Chapter, retired Judge Calvin Johnson, panel moderator, and former New Orleans Mayor “Moon” Landrieu, all of whom spoke about the historic importance of the film and their experiences during the turbulent sixties.

Morial is the widow of Ernest N. “Dutch” Morial, the city’s first African-American mayor and mother of five, including Marc H. Morial, National Urban League president and a former New Orleans mayor and, spoke about the film’s origins. “It was 1980. I was the director of student programs at Xavier. The students had no idea that New Orleans had a long history in civil rights.” So Morial approached colleague Burrell Ware with the idea for the documentary.

“Burrell Ware was a remarkable filmmaker,” Morial continued. Ware got the footage of Reverend Avery C. Alexander, a SCLC member and later, state legislator, being dragged by police. “The New Orleans media didn’t cover the event. Burrell got the film clip from the BBC,” she added. Morial sought funding for the film. The Greater New Orleans Regional Foundation pitched in but the Rhodes family contributed the most. “Interviews were conducted in 1984 and the film debuted in 1987,” she said.

Jacques MorIal, a public policy analyst, communication strategist, and senior organizer with the Louisiana Justice Institute, accompanied his mother to the event.

Mrs. Morial said N. Sundiata Haley, a lawyer and one of four sons of civil rights icon Oretha Castle Haley, approached her with the idea of commemorating and showing the documentary.
Panelists responded to the question, ‘Are we a house united?’

“It’s worse than 1984 but if we come together, we can be a house united. Lest we forget, we have come a long way but we are not done,” said Dr. Cassimere, who participated in the sit-ins and peaceful protests for more than two years, during the height of the civil rights unrest in New Orleans. The protests led to 500 jobs in local businesses.

“It is much better than it was,” added Elie, who represented the students and youth and negotiated with merchants and politicians to end segregation. “There is plenty of room for improvement but we have come a long way,” agreed Judge Johnson.

Moon Landrieu agreed. “We have come a long way. I’m not saying that bias doesn’t still exist,” he said, pointing to opposition against the President Barack Obama, the country’s first African-American president. “The question is whether we want to be united,” said Landrieu. As a state legislator in the 1960s, Moon Landrieu stood up against his segregationist colleagues. When he became mayor, Landrieu was the first to hire Blacks to head departments.

“No, we are certainly not united. Much has changed but there is a lot to do. There is a pure color thing but it has shifted more toward a class and economic thing.”

We are not a house united, we see it in the schools. Fifty years later, it’s painful to see how politics is eroding, and the ugly parts of people out there,” said Mrs. Morial.

Attorney N. Sundiata Haley spoke of the importance of re-broadcasting the film. As to whether we are a house united, he said, “We’re somewhere in the middle although we are not there. If we keep working, we can be united someday.

“I just thought it important that we rebroadcast the film,” says Haley, “but it’s more important that we screen the film in the schools. Students have to know their history to know where they are going in the future.” Also present for the event were Michael Haley and wife, Penni. The couple operated Oretha Castle Haley’s “Learning Work­shop,” a nursery and pre-k school. Sundiata’s wife, Dr. Rachael Davis Haley, said the film will be shown Thursday, November 20, at Xavier University’s College of Edu­cation. The Haley Found­ation is committed to having a copy of “A House Divided” in every school in New Orleans.

Perhaps James Earl Jones said it best on film 30 years ago, when he said, “The question is will we have the courage to face this problem head on, like those who did it 30 years ago, so that we can be a house united.”

This article originally published in the November 17, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.