The New Orleans Branch is the oldest continuously active branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored PeopleKwame Anthony Appiah, Henry Louis Gates Jr., eds. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, in articles "Civil Rights Movement" by Patricia Sullivan and "National Association for the Advancement of Colored People." . south of Washington D.C. It was formally chartered on July 15, 1915. However, prior to that time, there had been organizational efforts underway to affiliate with this new national civil rights organization which had first organized in New York City in 1909. In 1911, Emanuel M. Dunn, Paul Landix Sr. and James E. Gayle wrote to the NAACP national office to obtain more information about this "new abolition movement." Apparently, the locals did not wait for formal action from the national office, but proceeded to organize without official sanction.Louisiana's Rich History of Protest, Advocacy & Rebellion. http://www.naacplouisiana.com/louisianahistory.html
In any case, a surviving copy of the program for the 1917 Annual Meeting indicated that the branch had been meeting, even without official authorization, since 1911. The January 1916 issue of The Crisis reported that a Branch had been organized in New Orleans. H.C. Casa Calvo and Louis G. King were listed as founding president and secretary respectively. There were twenty founding members. It has been reported that the branch formally organized in the facilities of Tulane Avenue Baptist Church which was ministered by Rev. Eugene Walter White, who served as one of the early presidents. Tulane Avenue B.C., now Tulane Memorial B.C., met on Tulane Avenue between Claborne and Derbigny Streets. Early members of the executive committee (1917) were: Dr. E.W. White, President; L.B. Vigne, Vice President; E.M. Dunn, Secretary; N.B. Flott, Treasurer; Dr. E.T.M. Devore; Dr. E.J. Vincent; Ms. C. Richards; Charles Byrd; Dr. J.H. Thomas; Dr. W.A. Willis; B.N. Petty; Alexander Mollay; and James E. Gayle. In addition, there were several active committees which included: Membership, Finance, Press, Legal Redress, Grievance, and Education.
One of the branch's earliest actions was the presentation of a petition containing more than 5,000 signatures to Mayor Martin Behrman protesting the use of Negro women prisoners as street cleaners. The branch could do little more than protest since only a handful of Negroes were registered to vote. Most black voters had been removed from the rolls by the end of the 19th century. While there had been nearly 135,000 black voters across the state in 1896, by 1910, there were less than 1,000 black voters throughout the state. Plessey v. Ferguson which gave legal approval to racial segregation bore much bitter fruit for the future. It would take many years of bitter tears and unending toil and even innocent lives to undo the effects of this decision.
Getting the word out The Plessey decision involved racial segregation on railroad cars; but segregation followed in quick succession on street cars, theaters, sporting matches and jails and prisons. "Separate but equal" schools were mere empty words, as the city of New Orleans failed to provide a single public high school for Negroes prior to 1915. Therefore, high on the agenda for the new leaders of the branch was improved educational facilities and opportunities for black citizens. Under the leadership of the Rev. White, the branch organized a Branch newspaper, The Vindicator, to publicize its program and to appeal for financial support. The branch secretary, Emanuel Dunn served as editor and manager of the paper. In 1921, Rev. White was succeeded by one of his deacons, Dr. George W. Lucas, who made the branch into an effective voice for Negro protest. Throughout the 1920s, the branch raised funds as it raised its voice in protest against the poll tax, the white Democratic primary, segregated neighborhoods and police brutality against black citizens and the proposed closing of the Joseph Craig School. The school board ultimately reconsidered its decision.Sullivan, Patricia. Lift Every Voice: The NAACP and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement.
A.P. Tureaud Alexander Pierre Tureaud was born in the old French Hospital in New Orleans in 1899, less than 35 years following the Civil War. He grew up on Kerlerec Street in the 7th Ward with 10 brothers and sisters. As a teenager, Tureaud worked in railroad yards in Chicago, and later moved to New York to live with his brother and work with his uncle, James Slater, who was involved in Republican politics. When Tureaud was 19, he became a junior clerk in the U.S. Justice Department library in Washington, D.C. Tureaud rented a room at the home of NAACP activist Shelby Davidson and wrote for the Washington Daily American newspaper. Tureaud, A. P. (1899–1972) | Amistad Research Center http://www.amistadresearchcenter.org/archon/?p=creators/creator&id=10
As the local attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., Benjamin L. Hooks, "Birth and Separation of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund", Crisis 1979 86(6): 218–220. 0011-1422 Tureaud successfully obtained equal pay for Louisiana's African American teachers and the admission of qualified students to state-supported professional, graduate and undergraduate schools. He fought to end segregation on city buses in Louisiana, and he successfully defended one of the first sit-in cases to go before the U.S. Supreme Court. Of the more than 60 cases he filed from 1944 to his death, the more notable cases included the following. In 1940, the New Orleans branch of the NAACP hired legendary attorney Thurgood Marshall to represent it in the case against the Orleans Parish School Board for equitable pay. Joseph P. McKelpin v. Orleans Parish School Board (1941) was ultimately settled out of court on September 1, 1942, and equalized teacher salaries in Louisiana. Eight years later in 1950 and 1953, he filed suit against the Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors on behalf of Roy S. Wilson (1950) and Alexander P. Tureaud Jr. which desegregated higher education institutions. The 1952 case of Earl Benjamin BushBush v. Orleans Parish School Board and the Desegregation of New Orleans Schools http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/tu_bush_bio_tureaud.html (son of insurance salesman Oliver Bush) v. Orleans Parish School Board led to the desegregation of public schools. Fairclough, Adam. Race & Democracy: The Civil Rights Struggle in Louisiana, 1915-1972. In 1959, Federal Judge J.S. Wright ordered the Orleans Parish School Board to integrate its schools;Baker, Liva. The Second Battle of New Orleans: The Hundred-Year Struggle to Integrate the Schools. Gail Etienne, Leona Tate, Ruby Bridges, and Tessie Prevost were selected to fulfill the court's mandate. On November 14, 1960, three of the four children entered the John McDonogh #19 Elementary School, and one student, entered at William Frantz School. A.P. Tureaud retired in 1971. A.P. Tureaud died in New Orleans at the age of 73.
Lucas extended his activities beyond the City of New Orleans and for a short time acted unofficially as state president for the NAACP. In 1925, he was elected to the national board of directors, where he served until his death in 1931. During the 1920s, the NAACP was joined in its crusade by a new newspaper The Louisiana Weekly, published by Constant C. Dejoie Sr. This newspaper, with many contacts across the state, helped to facilitate the work of the NAACP. Following the death of Dr. Lucas, Dunn, George Labat assumed the leadership of the branch. The high unemployment rate that was especially for Negroes, made it difficult for the association to hold most of its members.
Challenging the status quo The branch was besieged with complaints of racial discrimination in housing, employment, and hospital care and police brutality. On one occasion the branch president, Dr. A.W. Brazier, was arrested for investigating a complaint against the police. Others who served as president during the 1930s included: Rev. E.W. White, George Labat and James E. Gayle. In 1939 a group of "young Turks" challenged the incumbent leadership for control. Political tickets were formed, parades were held and more than seven hundred members participated in the election. The challengers lost for the moment, but this new group would shortly take over the branch's leadership and would direct the affairs of the association for the next several decades.
"The Group," included Daniel and Mildred Byrd, Bennett Ross, John E. Rousseau Jr., Arthur J. Chapital Sr., Rev. Abraham Lincoln (A.L.) Davis Jr., Katie E. Wickham and Annie W. Ramie. By 1942 "the group" had gained control. Bennett Ross became the new president and the membership zoomed to more than three thousand. When Ross stepped down to enter the armed service, Byrd took over the leadership.
In early 1943, Daniel Byrd became the founding president of the Louisiana State Conference of NAACP Branches in Louisiana. He was later made its first executive secretary, a position that he had held with the New Orleans Branch. Attorney Alexander P. Tureaud, who had been actively involved in the NAACP since the 1920s, became a tireless champion for the branch and the state conference as legal counselor for both. Tureaud won 16 separate teacher salary equalization cases across the state. He was also successful in overturning the white primary within Louisiana. Later he was responsible for desegregation of public schools in 53 of the state's 64 parishes!De Jong, Greta. A Different Day: African American Struggles for Justice in Rural Louisiana, 1900-1970. In later years, Byrd gave technical assistance in school desegregation cases in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, and Illinois. From 1967 to 1974, he served on the Louisiana Education Association-Louisiana Teacher Association Joint Committee, which negotiated the merger of the two organizations. In 1974, he served on the Louisiana Committee for the Dismantling of a Dual System of Higher Education.Fairclough, Adam. A Class of Their Own: Black Teachers in the Segregated South. In 1949, Byrd stated: "We are determined to secure absolute equality and nothing less than complete equality is acceptable to our community."The Road to November 14th 1960. http://theneworleanstribune.com/road.htm Byrd retired from the NAACP in 1977. Byrd died in 1984.
During the 1940s and 1950s, the branch conducted a successful selective buying campaign against major department stores which refused Negro women the same rights as white women to try on clothes before purchasing them. The branch also conducted voter education classes which helped to push Negro registration over thirty thousand by the early 1950s.
Continued fight for desegregation
In 1952, Arthur J. Chapital Sr. assumed the helm of the branch, after serving on its executive committee for a number of years. The "Chapital Years," 1952–62, could only be characterized as "turbulent," but equally successful. The branch launched an all-out assault against segregated schools, public transportation, public parks and playgrounds and public facilities. Its stepped up protest resulted in a state court order which forced it to disband temporarily. The forming of a new organization, the New Orleans Improvement Assn., which was headed by Dr. William Adams, spearheaded the desegregation of public buses and streetcars in 1958.Bartley, Numan V. The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South During the 1950s.