William Frantz Elementary School | |
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Address | |
3811 North Galvez Street , , 70117 | |
Information | |
School type | Elementary school |
William Frantz School | |
Location | 3811 N. Galvez St., New Orleans, Louisiana |
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Coordinates | 29°58′35″N90°01′59″W / 29.97639°N 90.03306°W |
Area | less than one acre |
Built | 1937 |
Built by | Herman T. Makofsky |
Architect | E.A. Christy |
Architectural style | Art Deco |
NRHP reference No. | 05000557 [1] |
Added to NRHP | June 8, 2005 |
William Frantz Elementary School is an American elementary school located at 3811 North Galvez Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, 70117. [2] [3] Along with McDonogh No. 19 Elementary School, it was involved in the New Orleans school desegregation crisis during 1960.
William Frantz Elementary School was one of the first all-white elementary schools in the Deep South to be integrated when Ruby Bridges became the first African-American student to attend the school. [4] In 1960, when Bridges was six years of age, her parents responded to a request from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and volunteered her to participate in the integration of the New Orleans school system. [5]
The school was built in 1937. It was designed in understated Art Deco style by the school board's architect E.A. Christy. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 as William Frantz School. [1] [6]
In 2014, a statue of Ruby Bridges was unveiled in the courtyard of William Frantz Elementary School. [7]
In summer of 1960, Ruby Bridges was one of six African-American children in New Orleans to pass the test that determined whether or not the black children would go to the all-white school. However, two students decided to stay at their old school, and three were transferred to Mcdonogh No. 19. Ruby was the only one assigned to William Frantz. Her father was initially reluctant, but her mother felt strongly that the move was needed not only to give her own daughter a better education, but to "take this step forward ... for all African-American children." Her mother finally convinced her father to let her go to the school. [8]
The court-ordered first day of integrated schools in New Orleans, November 14, 1960, was commemorated by Norman Rockwell in the painting The Problem We All Live With . [9] As Bridges describes it, "Driving up I could see the crowd, but living in New Orleans, I actually thought it was Mardi Gras. There was a large crowd of people outside of the school. They were throwing things and shouting, and that sort of goes on in New Orleans at Mardi Gras." [9] Former United States Deputy Marshal Charles Burks later recalled, "She showed a lot of courage. She never cried. She didn't whimper. She just marched along like a little soldier, and we're all very very proud of her." [10]
The Problem We All Live With was later displayed in the White House during the presidency of Barack Obama. [11]
In 2005 Frantz was put on the National Register of Historic Places. [12] In 2005 New Orleans Public Schools was considering closing Frantz at the same time Hurricane Katrina resulted in extensive damage to the building due to five feet of water flooding on the ground floor. [13] The school underwent a $23.5 million rehabilitation project. As part of it, room 2306 (the first grade classroom Bridges attended) was restored "to match its original 1960s appearance to honor Ruby and her story." [14]
Once reopened, the building hosted the charter school Akili Academy [15] until it was merged with another charter school. [16] It then became the high school campus for Morris Jeff Community School, Louisiana’s only PK-12 International Baccalaureate World School. [17]
The holiday of Mardi Gras is celebrated in southern Louisiana, including the city of New Orleans. Celebrations are concentrated for about two weeks before and through Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras is French for Fat Tuesday, the season is known as Carnival and begins on 12th Night, January 6th, and extends until midnight before Ash Wednesday. Club, or Krewe, balls start soon after, though most are extremely private, with their Kings and Queens coming from wealthy old families and their courts consisting of the season's debutantes. Most of the high society Krewes do not stage parades. As Fat Tuesday gets nearer, the parades start in earnest. Usually there is one major parade each day ; many days have several large parades. The largest and most elaborate parades take place the last five days of the Mardi Gras season. In the final week, many events occur throughout New Orleans and surrounding communities, including parades and balls.
Carrollton is a historic neighborhood of Uptown New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, which includes the Carrollton Historic District, recognized by the Historic District Landmark Commission. It is the part of Uptown New Orleans farthest upriver while still being easily accessible to the French Quarter. It was historically a separate town, laid out in 1833 and incorporated on March 10, 1845. Carrollton was annexed by New Orleans in 1874, but it has long retained some elements of distinct identity.
Ruby Nell Bridges Hall is an American civil rights activist. She was the first African American child to attend formerly whites-only William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis on November 14, 1960. She is the subject of a 1964 painting, The Problem We All Live With, by Norman Rockwell.
The Ninth Ward or 9th Ward is a distinctive region of New Orleans, Louisiana, which is located in the easternmost downriver portion of the city. It is geographically the largest of the 17 Wards of New Orleans. On the south, the Ninth Ward is bounded by the Mississippi River. On the western or "upriver" side, the Ninth Ward is bounded by Franklin Avenue, then Almonaster Avenue, then People's Avenue. From the north end of People's Avenue the boundary continues on a straight line north to Lake Pontchartrain; this line is the boundary between the Ninth and the city's Eighth Ward. The Lake forms the north and northeastern end of the ward. St. Bernard Parish is the boundary to the southeast, Lake Borgne farther southeast and east, and the end of Orleans Parish to the east at the Rigolets.
The Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB), branded as NOLA Public Schools, governs the public school system that serves New Orleans, Louisiana. It includes the entirety of Orleans Parish, coterminous with New Orleans.
Central City is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. It is located in the 11th Ward of New Orleans in Uptown, just above the Garden District, on the "lakeside" of St. Charles Avenue. A subdistrict of the Central City/Garden District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: MLK Boulevard, South Claiborne Avenue and the Pontchartrain Expressway to the north, Magazine, Thalia, Prytania and Felicity Streets and St. Charles Avenue to the south and Toledano Street, Louisiana Avenue and Washington Avenue to the west. This old predominantly African-American neighborhood has been important in the city's brass band and Mardi Gras Indian traditions.
The Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club is a fraternal organization in New Orleans, Louisiana which puts on the Zulu parade each year on Mardi Gras Day. Zulu is New Orleans' largest predominantly African American carnival organization known for its krewe members wearing grass skirts and its unique throw of hand-painted coconuts. The club is a regular feature of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
The McDonogh Three is a nickname for three African American students who desegregated McDonogh 19 Elementary School, in New Orleans on November 14, 1960. Even though school segregation had been illegal since the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, no states in the American Deep South had taken action to integrate their schools.
The William J. Fischer Housing Development, better known as the Fischer Projects, was a housing project in Algiers, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. It was known notoriously for a series of high-profile murders in the 1970s and 1980s. It was the last conventional public housing development constructed in New Orleans, and one of the first to begin demolition. It originally consisted of a 13-floor high-rise and fourteen 3-floor units. The area has been undergoing redevelopment since about 2004 and currently none of the original low-rise buildings remain. The development is located along Whitney Avenue in the Algiers area of the city's west bank, which is part of the 15th Ward and is named for William J. Fischer who served as chairman of HANO in the 1950s. The property is now converted to a small low-income housing development.
Ruby Bridges is a 1998 television film, written by Toni Ann Johnson, directed by Euzhan Palcy and based on the true story of Ruby Bridges, one of the first black students to attend integrated schools in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1960. As a six-year-old, Bridges was one of four black first-graders, selected on the basis of test scores, to attend previously all-white public schools in New Orleans. Three students were sent to McDonogh 19, and Ruby was the only black child to be sent to William Frantz Elementary School. It is currently available for streaming on Disney+.
The Krewe of Muses is an all-female super krewe and social organization.
Barbara Henry is a retired American teacher most notable for teaching Ruby Bridges, the first African-American child to attend the all-white William Frantz Elementary School, located in New Orleans.
The Problem We All Live With is a 1964 painting by Norman Rockwell that is considered an iconic image of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. It depicts Ruby Bridges, a six-year-old African-American girl, on her way to William Frantz Elementary School, an all-white public school, on November 14, 1960, during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis. Because of threats of violence against her, she is escorted by four deputy U.S. marshals; the painting is framed so that the marshals' heads are cropped at the shoulders, making Bridges the only person fully visible. On the wall behind her are written the racial slur "nigger" and the letters "KKK"; a smashed and splattered tomato thrown against the wall is also visible. The white protesters are not visible, as the viewer is looking at the scene from their point of view. The painting is oil on canvas and measures 36 inches (91 cm) high by 58 inches (150 cm) wide.
Booker T. Washington High School is a public charter high school in New Orleans, in the U.S. state of Louisiana.
Crescent City Schools is a charter management organization (CMO) based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Crescent City Schools is part of a movement in New Orleans to transform one of the worst school systems in the country. In the fall of 2010, Crescent City Schools received a Type 5 charter from the state of Louisiana to transform a failing school in New Orleans. In February 2011, Crescent City Schools was assigned to Harriet Tubman, a K-8 school in Orleans Parish, and assumed operations there on July 1, 2011. In 2012, the organization was awarded the expanded charter for Akili Academy of New Orleans and the charter for Paul B. Habans Elementary. Habans opened as Paul Habans Charter School in July 2013.
BUKU Music + Art Project is a New Orleans–based two-day music and arts festival founded in 2012 by Winter Circle Productions and held annually at Mardi Gras World. BUKU considers itself to be a boutique event that delivers a big festival punch without compromising its house-party vibe. BUKU seeks to serve as a platform for the intersection of pop culture and the New Orleans underground arts community, and combines international musicians with local food vendors, local visual artists, and various surprise pop-up street performers throughout the site. BUKU's musical tastes have been a relatively even mix of electronic dance music, hip hop music, and indie rock featuring past performances by Bassnectar, Lana Del Rey, Kid Cudi, Migos, MGMT, Travis Scott, A$AP Rocky, Illenium, Nas, Excision, Major Lazer, Alt-J, TV on the Radio, A Day to Remember, REZZ, Flosstradamus, deadmau5, Kendrick Lamar, Porter Robinson, Pretty Lights, RL Grime, Seth Troxler, Future, Ellie Goulding and dozens of others.
The New Orleans school desegregation crisis was a period of intense public resistance in New Orleans that followed the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. The conflict peaked when U.S. Circuit Judge J. Skelly Wright ordered desegregation in New Orleans to begin on November 14, 1960.
The history of the 1954 to 1968 American civil rights movement has been depicted and documented in film, song, theater, television, and the visual arts. These presentations add to and maintain cultural awareness and understanding of the goals, tactics, and accomplishments of the people who organized and participated in this nonviolent movement.
McDonogh 19 Elementary School is an American elementary school located at 5909 St. Claude Avenue in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Louisiana. Along with William Frantz Elementary School, it was involved in the New Orleans school desegregation crisis during 1960.
Leona Tate is an American activist, civil rights pioneer, and community advocate from New Orleans. She was one of the first Black children in the United States to desegregate a public elementary school.