Nola Resistance Historic New Orleans Collection

Explore our oral history project featuring testimony from individuals who were active in the fight for racial equality in New Orleans between 1954 and 1976. Explore our oral history project featuring testimony from individuals who were active in the fight for racial equality in New Orleans between 1954 and 1976. The modern African American civil rights movement brought about immense cultural change in New Orleans. The fight for racial justice included voter registration drives as well as efforts to end segregation and curtail discrimination in schools, on public transportation, and in businesses. Local chapters of CORE, the NAACP, and NAACP youth council led the movement. This oral history project, funded in part by a National Park Service grant, records testimony from individuals who were active in the fight for racial equality in New Orleans between 1954 and 1976.

For more information, access the full audio and transcript for each oral history. The project documented a number of historic events and themes in the interviews with the activists who took part. The ten short videos below highlight these stories from the civil rights movement in New Orleans. NEW ORLEANS (press release) – As part of the NOLA Resistance collaborative initiative led by The Historic New Orleans Collection (THNOC) to preserve and share stories from the New Orleans Civil Rights Movement, a... 10. Built collaboratively with living individuals who bravely participated in the local Civil Rights Movement as well as those working today to preserve the legacy of the movement, The Trail They Blazed engages visitors in...

The exhibition includes 1,000 square feet of historic visuals and more than three dozen audio offerings that highlights boycotts, public school desegregation, the Congress of Racial Equality, the 1963 March on City Hall, the... “We were fortunate for the opportunity to preserve the stories of so many leaders of the local Civil Rights Movement as part of our NOLA Resistance initiative,” said THNOC Curator/Historian Eric Seiferth. “We designed The Trail They Blazed as an extension of the oral history project, continuing to prioritize a collaborative process that has produced a richer exhibition focused on honoring the past and inspiring the... Understanding how change happens – how it happened in the past and how to enact change today – can be difficult. The Trail They Blazed attempts to clarify the process of making change by breaking down historical examples from the New Orleans Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s to 1970s. The exhibition encourages younger visitors to think critically about how change happens and provides examples from this era to help create a roadmap for future activism.

“The Trail They Blazed makes the TEP Center the perfect setting for the debut of this important exhibition about the New Orleans Civil Rights Movement,” said Leona Tate, founder and executive director of the... “We invite all New Orleanians to visit and learn about the pioneers who made history here and elsewhere throughout our community.” “The Trail They Blazed,” part of the NOLA Resistance collaborative initiative by The Historic New Orleans Collection, is a traveling exhibit built collaboratively with the community that participated in the local civil rights movement... Featuring more than 1,000 square feet of historic visuals and more than 40 sound bites, visitors can hear and read stories about boycotts, public school desegregation, the march on City Hall, voter registration and... The exhibit is currently on view at the TEP Center until Nov. 12.

Panels in the new “The Trails They Blazed” traveling exhibit, currently on display at the TEP Center. A new traveling exhibit, currently at the TEP Center through November 12th, brings on both memories and reflections for a New Orleans writer. I have always been mesmerized by the Civil Rights Movement. Too young to participate in Freedom Rides, sit-ins, or the March on New Orleans’ City Hall, I was nowhere near old enough to fight for voter rights or to boycott Canal Street. And yet, I do remember that years later, our Black school in rural Louisiana was closed and shuttered like a dream, before we were sent to the nearby white school. As with most people, the Civil Rights Era has remained with me, through readings and experiences I lived or heard about, or events I took part in over the years.

One of those events happened recently, on September 16, when I was invited to an educator’s viewing of a new and important exhibit appropriately titled “The Trail They Blazed.” The exhibit has been produced by The Historic New Orleans Collection (THNOC), through NOLA Resistance: The Civil Rights Movement in New Orleans – using a grant from the National Park Service. THNOC plans to share the traveling exhibit with local businesses, schools, colleges and religious institutions over the next two years. The modern African American civil rights movement brought about immense cultural change in New Orleans. The fight for racial justice included voter registration drives as well as efforts to end segregation and curtail discrimination in schools, on public transportation, and in businesses. Local chapters of CORE, the NAACP, and NAACP youth council led the movement.

This oral history project, funded in part by a National Park Service grant, records testimony from individuals who were active in the fight for racial equality in New Orleans between 1954 and 1976. For more information, access the full audio and transcript for each oral history. The project documented a number of historic events and themes in the interviews with the activists who took part. The ten short videos below highlight these stories from the civil rights movement in New Orleans. In November of 1960, six years after the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education found segregation by race in public education to be unconstitutional, New Orleans’s public schools began the process of integration.

That fall, four young girls—Leona Tate, Tessie Prevost, Gail Etienne, and Ruby Bridges—integrated two elementary schools in the Ninth Ward, McDonogh 19 and William Frantz. During the early 1960s, civil rights fighters pushed for enforcement of the federal ruling to provide integrated facilities for interstate travel by organizing bus trips known as “Freedom Rides.” New Orleanians, including members of... Dodie Smith-Simmons recalls her experiences as a Freedom Rider, including the day when a colleague told her to “get Bobby Kennedy on the phone.”

People Also Search

• NOLA Resistance | Historic New Orleans Collection
• NOLA Resistance Oral History Project | The Historic New Orleans Collection
• NOLA Resistance | The Historic New Orleans collection
• Civil Rights Traveling Exhibition Makes Debut Sept. 10
• The Trail They Blazed | The Historic New Orleans Collection
• The Historic New Orleans Collection - Facebook
• 'The Trail They Blazed' now on view at the ... - The New Orleans 100
• Traveling Civil Rights Movement exhibition to debut in New Orleans
• Revisiting the Civil Rights Movement in "The Trail They Blazed"
• NOLA Resistance Oral History Project — Bunk History