"Troublemakers"
Many Americans were disgusted at the images of New Orleans they saw on their TVs in 1960: mothers shrieking at little schoolgirls, lawmakers whipping up violence. Louisiana's political leaders blamed "troublemaker" journalists for covering the story. "This is very bad for business, the tourist trade," said New Orleans Mayor deLesseps Morrison, "and it is a damage that we are suffering completely without fault on our part."
The Black Press
Black-owned and White-owned newspapers told vastly different stories about the day New Orleans schools were integrated. "Parents Show Real Courage," wrote the editors of the The Louisiana Weekly, applauding the decisions of the Black girls' families. Meanwhile, a corresponding headline in The Times-Picayune channeled the mood of White New Orleans: "Dreadful Day Comes at Last."
WDSU
Most of the White-owned news outlets in Louisiana either condemned school integration or ignored it. But reporters at WDSU in New Orleans threw themselves into the story, producing news pieces, editorials, and live broadcasts about it. "They were raising a banner for integration" when "the whole South was against integration," says Norman Robinson, who reported for WDSU from 1990 to 2014. "It was revolutionary."
Covering Injustice
Some parishes have been fighting school integration for 60 years, and some of those fights have been heartbreaking. In 1974, 13-year-old Timothy Weber, a White student, was shot and killed in a riot at newly integrated Destrehan High—after which 16-year-old Gary Tyler, a Black student, was sentenced to death based on dubious evidence that was later recanted. Norman Robinson covered the story, and, as he remembers, "it was a traumatic experience."
Next: Mapping Segregation
Coming soon
The third and final section of this project is the Schools, Race, & Money Map: an interactive map that lets users examine the relationship between integration, demographics, and school funding over time in New Orleans.