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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (46717)	2/15/2000 4:06:00 PM
From: nihil	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 71178

What a strange outcome for the fame of John McDonogh who played a major role in establishing public education in New Orleans and Baltimore. I think it rather sad that politicians (both black and white) did not understand and credit what this strange man (and his laggard trustees)actually accomplished. There's room for a brilliant book about this man: 5. MCDONOGH DAY BOYCOTT One of the first organized protests of the Civil Rights struggle in New Orleans was the McDonogh Day Boycott in May 1954. John McDonogh was a parsimonious eccentric who died a a generous philanthropist, leaving an endowment to the public schools in Baltimore, Maryland, and in New Orleans. He was a slave holder, but one with a curious twist: he educated a handful of his slaves, freed them (manumission), and helped them establish a model community at McDonoghville in present-day Algiers. He did this in the hopes of preparing the former slaves for a new life in Liberia, West Africa. In May of each year, a timeless ritual was played out: students from the segregated school system gathered at Lafayette Park in downtown New Orleans to pay homage to John McDonogh. They placed flowers at the foot of his statue, the different bands played, the students sung the McDonogh Ode, and finally each delegation picked up a symbolic " key to the city" from the mayor who stood across the street at Gallier Hall, which was then the City Hall. The white students, according to the dictates of segregation, were the first to deposit their flowers at the McDonogh statue, the first to sing, and the first to receive the keys of the city from the mayor. The black children, in contrast, often had to wait in the hot sun while the white students finished their ceremony and only then did the ceremony for black students begin. It was a subtle act of denigration, typical of the system. Nonetheless, McDonogh Day was an occasion that stood out in the minds of all children. QUOTE: In A House Divided, Revius Ortique recalled that"as a child he was proud to participate" in the McDonogh Day ceremonies. He enjoyed dressing up for the occasion; he enjoyed the pomp and circumstance; he was young and did not understand the degrading symbolism; he felt special even within the constraints of segregation. In 1954, the black teachers' associations protested the discrimination evinced at the McDonogh Day ceremonies. Arthur Chapital, director of the local branch of the NAACP and a postal employee ,called for a boycott of McDonogh Day. He said, "We know we have to do something." Chapital urged Revius Ortique to make radio broadcasts urging black parents to keep their children home on McDonogh Day. Ortique, then vice president at large of the Louisiana Council of Labor and also an employee of the state Department of Labor, agreed, and his radio broadcasts began a life of civil rights activism. A.P. Tureaud, A.L. Davis, and other black leaders supported the boycott. In May 1954, white students from Orleans Parish met at Lafayette Park and honored John McDonogh in the traditional manner. The crowd of dignitaries and others awaited the sound of one of the bands from a black school. The sound was not forthcoming. The boycott was almost total. Only thirty-four of the city's 32,000 black students showed up. One black principal appeared; she never regained a leadership role in the black community. The boycott was effective. The mayor of the city, Chep Morrison, stood in front of Gallier Hall with 32 keys to the city in his hand but no school delegation to bestow them on. The boycott lasted for the next two years.