[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 176 (Thursday, December 12, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1855]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       UNIVERSITY OF NEW ORLEANS

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. CEDRIC L. RICHMOND

                              of louisiana

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, December 12, 2013

  Mr. RICHMOND. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor fifty-six African-
American students whose bravery and determination resulted in the 
University of New Orleans being the first university in the American 
South to open as a fully integrated institution of higher education. 
This year is the 55th anniversary of that historic moment in my 
district.
  Established in 1956, The University of New Orleans was originally 
called Louisiana State University in New Orleans, or LSUNO. Classes 
began in September 1958 with a total of 1,460 students, all freshmen 
and double the number originally anticipated. Of that total, fifty-six 
African-American students registered to attend LSUNO that fall.
  Four years after the Supreme Court struck down ``separate, but 
equal'' in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case, there were 
still some who would seek to deny these students admission to the 
public university. Civil rights activists led by Alexander Pierre 
Tureaud, an attorney for the New Orleans chapter of the National 
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) during the 
civil rights movement, and Ernest V. ``Dutch'' Morial, who later became 
a two-term New Orleans mayor, brought suit in federal court to allow 
black students to attend LSUNO While the local branch of the NAACP 
sought to prepare the African-American students for their 
groundbreaking efforts, leaders of the White Citizens Council of 
Greater New Orleans worked to provide harassing and degrading 
conditions for the students on a daily basis. Some of the African-
American students were not able to endure such conditions for many 
weeks, while others remained in place for a few semesters. One of them, 
Mrs. Louise Williams Arnolie, still managed to graduate within four 
years.
  The students encouraged one another throughout the painful process. 
LSUNO's classrooms and campus were integrated, but its privately 
managed dining hall barred African-Americans. The students petitioned 
the LSUNO administration to end the cafeteria's contract. Following 
continued pressure from attorneys Tureaud and Morial, as well as 
student boycotts, Dean Homer Hitt gave the cafeteria's managers an 
ultimatum in the fall semester of 1960: Either serve all students or 
give up the lease. The company chose to give up the lease, and every 
part of the university was by then integrated.
  Today, the University of New Orleans is ranked by U.S. News and World 
Report as the most ethnically diverse public university in the state. 
Let us never forget that this remarkable diversity did not come easily. 
I would like to acknowledge the names of those fifty-six brave and 
determined individuals who enrolled at the University of New Orleans in 
1958: Brenda Holman Allen, Vincent A. Angeletta, Louise Williams 
Arnolie, Charles P. Breaux, Yvonne Buckles, Dorothy M. Caulfield, 
Janice E. Coleman-Sawyer, Laurence Crawford, Shirley M. Crawford, 
Claudine Curtis, Crystal M. Davis, Samuel Dugar, Josephine Eli, Wilson 
(Willison) Fleming, Harold L. Fontenette, Ferdinand J. Fortune III, 
Phillip L. Fortune, Geneva M. Gambrell, Jo Ann Gaskin, Charles S. 
Gibson, Peggy M.C. Jackson, Shirley M. Jennings, Alvin F. Johnson, 
Ervin C. Kinsey, Daniel J. Lewis, Sylvester Lyle Jr., Ernestine M. 
Lyons, Rosalee Mckinley, Rosemary J. McLean, Doris J. Mackey, Lucy 
Madere, Rose Mary Mays, Priscilla L. Metoyer, Phillip J. Mitchell, 
Joseph L. Narcisse, Gwendolyn A. Norman, Audrey M. Page, Walter L. 
Peck, Marilyn J. Phillips, Nelson J. Pierce, Samuel G. Poplus, 
Geraldine Reimonenq, William Ricks, Patricia R. Robinson, Ronald 
Shiloh, Charles W. Smith, Mildred T. Smith, Warren A. Smith, Jacquelyn 
M. Stansberry, Gloria Stokes, Angela A. Vaughn, Jennie F. Warmington, 
Algie V. Williams, Charles K. Williams, Joseph L. Williams, and Ellis 
Wilson.

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