Civil rights activists discuss the rich history of black resistance in N.O.

30th October 2017   ·   0 Comments

By Tyra Johnson
Contributing Writer

From participating in sit-ins with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to removing Confederate statues and flags in the city last year, New Orleans civil rights activists took a trip through time to look back at Black resistance in New Orleans leading up to today.

Tying together the history of resistance and redemption in New Orleans was the theme of a public panel on Sunday, Oct. 22, at Xavier University of Louisiana. These personal stories that brought about public results were relived by the Rev. Samson “Skip” Alexander, Phoebe Ferguson and Keith Plessy, both descendants of the Plessy v. Ferguson case, former Black Panther Malik Rahim, Malcolm Suber, an organizer for Take ‘Em Down NOLA, and A. P. Tureaud Jr, who was part of a segregation case that desegregated Louisiana State University.

“No matter how much time passes and issues are ignored or skirted, or hid or buried in the sand, these issues surface and resurface again,” said Dr. Michael White, the Keller Endowed Chair in the Humanities at Xavier, who coordinated and moderated the event.

White reminded the audience at the public event that the many civil issues happening today, such as athletes taking a knee during the National Anthem and the Black Lives Matter movement prove that history repeats itself.

In remembering Plessy v. Ferguson, Keith Plessy, co-founder of the Plessy & Ferguson Foundation, revisited the legacy of his family. His grandfather’s first cousin, Homer Plessy, refused to get out of his seat on a segregated East Louisiana Railroad train car in the Ninth ward in 1892. Plessy recalled that the railroad disagreed with the enforced laws. The removal of Homer Plessy was strategic, he said.

“They didn’t like the laws that were existing back then. They were ridiculous to them, because they wanted to sell all first-class tickets, no second-class tickets to any citizen,” Keith Plessy said.

At the other end of the Supreme Court case, the defendant was Judge John Howard Ferguson. Phoebe Ferguson, the great-great-granddaughter of John Howard Ferguson and co-founder of the Plessy & Ferguson Foundation, said the foundation uses the case as an example to evaluate why past civil rights events happened as they did. Ferguson told the audience she hoped to build better relations between all races starting by uncovering history not taught in school, creating plaques and monuments dedicated to African Americans who achieved resistance, and practicing peaceful resistance.

Segregation haunted A. P. Tureaud Jr. during his time at Louisiana State University. He continued the legacy of his father, A.P. Tureaud Sr., who was the attorney for the New Orleans chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Before attending the college, Tureaud sued LSU for admissions. He said due to a mistrial, his studies at the college were cut short, so he transferred to Xavier. Tureaud said his experience at LSU was tragic due to being rejected by students and faculty at the university.

“They were so intent upon keeping Black undergraduates out of white universities in the South that they were hell-bent on doing anything they could to slow down or to eliminate the integration of undergraduate schools at Southern states,” Tureaud said.

Due to his fight for equality, Tureaud’s case was sent back to the Supreme Court who ruled all Southern colleges and universities must be integrated.

As an activist who showed no mercy, the Rev. Samson “Skip” Alexander reflected on being thrown into a Louisiana jail, accused of being a troublemaker. Upon his release, he travelled to Marrero, La. where a hospital was being built. Outside the hospital, a sign was posted that said they would not hire minorities, Alexander said. He worked to shut down the hospital for 30 days by leading a strike due to this act of discrimination, he told the audience.

“They got tired of being shut down, so they allowed Blacks to be hired at the West Jefferson Hospital at that time,” Alexander said of the outcome of his activism.

“Resistance started since the day the French sold Louisiana to become a part of the United States,” said former Black Panther, Malik Rahim. Black people have been true pioneers in New Orleans, Rahim said, and they were the ones who taught white people from Canada how to survive in the bayou, he added. Even the Mardi Gras Indians, Rahim explained, are not paying homage to Native Americans, but they signify the maroons, which were enslaved Africans who escaped captivity.

A new generation of activists now work to remove remnants of the city’s history of racism. “My life has been dedicated to lifting that burden of oppression,” Michael Suber said. He fights against coercion and white supremacy with his organization, Take ‘Em Down NOLA.

Suber said the organization renames schools and removes confederate statues. Suber said he will continue his organization’s fight with the mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, to continue to eliminate all controversial street and school names from the city. Suber said he believes this is necessary in order to rightfully honor the ones who died in the streets.

The Original Liberty Jazz Band took the audience through a Black history lesson not by voice, but by sound. The band showcased resistance through jazz, the blues and a church hymn. The history of civil rights is rich in New Orleans, White, a renowned musician himself, explained in organizing the event. The acts of resistance led to redemption, but the world has a long way to go, the panelists said.

“So goes the Gulf, so goes America. So goes America, so goes life as we know it,” Rahim said.

This article originally published in the October 30, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.