Sybil Haydel Morial, New Orleans’ first Black First Lady, has died
9th September 2024 · 0 Comments
By Fritz Esker
Contributing Writer
Civil rights activist and educator, Sybil Haydel Morial, the first Black first lady of New Orleans, passed away on September 3 at the age of 91.
Morial grew up in New Orleans as the daughter of a physician. She experienced the discrimination of Jim Crow laws, once being chased out of what is now the New Orleans Museum of Art for the crime of stepping inside.
Morial received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Boston University. There, she befriended Martin Luther King Jr., who was also a graduate student at Boston University at the time. She returned to New Orleans and worked as an elementary school teacher in the 1950s and 1960s.
“Even though we loved the freedoms of the North, we all wanted to go back to the South to be a part of the change when it came. And we did,” said Morial in an interview for the Xavier Story Project.
In 1962, she was the lone plaintiff in a successful challenge to a Louisiana statute prohibiting public school teachers from associating with any organization that promoted integration. She founded the Louisiana League of Good Government, which helped register Black voters.
Xavier University of Louisiana hired Morial as an administrator. While there, she produced a documentary “A House Divided” about New Orleans’ desegregation efforts. She retired from Xavier in 2005 as the university’s vice president for external affairs.
“She has been [a] neighbor to many, as taught in the parable of the Samaritan. A member of Xavier’s class of 1952 and an administrator here for 28 years, our university has been greatly blessed by her intellectual and personal gifts that manifest not only on this campus but throughout New Orleans, Louisiana, and worldwide,” said Dr. Reynold Verret, president of Xavier University of Louisiana. “Her gift to all is enduring, and she will be sorely missed.”
When the World’s Fair came to New Orleans in 1984, Morial was president and chair of the I’ve Known Rivers Afro-American Pavilion. Morial helped design the pavilion and initiated efforts to secure funding for it. She believed it was important that the city’s Black population have representation at a World’s Fair in a city with a substantial Black population.
Even in her golden years, Morial remained active. In 2015, she wrote a memoir titled “Witness to Change: From Jim Crow to Political Empowerment.”
While an accomplished activist, Morial also achieved notoriety as the wife of Ernest N. “Dutch” Morial, the Crescent City’s first Black mayor. She had five children: Jacques, Marc, Julie, Cheri and Monique. Marc would eventually become New Orleans’ mayor from 1994-2002 and is the current president of the National Urban League.
Local leaders shared their praise and respect for Morial.
“Sybil Haydel Morial is a giant in New Orleans history, and I know the entire city mourns her passing,” said former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu in a press release. “Beyond her role supporting her husband Ernest ‘Dutch’ Morial’s historic mayoral terms and being mother to Mayor Marc Morial, Mrs. Sybil was a champion for civil rights and voting rights in her own right. She organized women’s groups, voter registration, and school integration efforts in the face of immense racism and backlash.”
Congressman Troy Carter (D-La.) also released a statement expressing his condolences on Moral’s passing as well as his appreciation for her lifetime of work and sacrifice. “Her commitment to education, equality, and justice served as a beacon of hope, inspiring generations to continue the fight for a more just society,” said Carter in a press release.
“There has been no greater influence in my professional life than Sybil and her husband Dutch,” said Orleans Parish Assessor Erroll G. Williams in a press release. “Their efforts in civil rights and education made my opportunities as a young man, and all residents of New Orleans, greater and more open.”
Mayor Latoya Cantrell, the city’s first female to hold the office, also released a statement about Morial’s passing.
“The historic service of Mrs. Morial and her late husband Ernest ‘Dutch’ Morial, the first African American Mayor of New Orleans, will always be remembered as a shining legacy of love and inspiring leadership for the City of New Orleans,” said Cantrell in a press release. “Mrs. Morial was a champion for civil rights, and a woman who fought tirelessly to break barriers and pave the way for future generations.”
The Morial family also released a statement regarding the passing of their matriarch.
“Words cannot express our sorrow at the loss of our beloved matriarch and guiding star. Our grief is tempered by our overwhelming gratitude for her life, her wisdom, and her love,” the statement read. “Like many women of the Civil Rights Era, she was the steel in the movement’s spine. From the moment she met our late father, Ernest ‘Dutch’ Morial, they were joined in the fight for justice and equality. She confronted the hard realities of Jim Crow with unwavering courage and faith, which she instilled not only in her own children but in every life she touched.”
This article originally published in the September 9, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
