#OTD 67 years ago, the McDonogh Day Boycott was one of #NOLA’s first protests of civil rights violations. It was organized by African-American public school students, teachers, and principals in the city, along with assistance from... (1/7) : State Library of Louisiana

the director of New Orleans’ NAACP chapter, Arthur Chapital and president-at-large of the LA. Council of Labor, Revis Ortique Jr. "McDonogh Day" was an annual ceremony paying homage to John McDonogh, wealthy businessman & 19th century slaveowner, who donated much of... (2/7)

his fortune to the education of “poor White and freed Black” children in both New Orleans and Baltimore upon his death. The segregated ceremony, where groups of children from white schools laid flowers at the McDonogh statue and were given keys to the city... 3/7)

followed by Black students who had to stand and wait in the hot and humid conditions until they were done, reflects the “separate but equal” legislation of the Jim Crow South and the schools erected in McDonogh’s name during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (4/7)

Within that same year (1954) as the Supreme Court's ruling in the decision of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Chapital called for the ceremony’s boycott and urged Ortique Jr. to ask Black parents to keep their children home via radio broadcasts. (5/7)

Of the 32,000 African American public school students, only 34 attended, with just one school principal as the mayor was left holding dozens of keys and no school delegations to receive them. (6/7)

The McDonogh monument was unveiled in December 1898, but was found broken and toppled last July. : @mgsledge (7/7)

More info here:
https://www.papermonuments.org/pmev-003-mcdonough-day-boycott

https://archive.is/20130218195705/http://www.southerninstitute.info/civil_rights_education/divided5.html

https://www.wwno.org/education/2020-06-19/slave-owner-john-mcdonoghs-money-left-a-long-legacy-of-inequitable-education-in-new-orleans

https://www.nola.com/news/article_accc745e-c2aa-11ea-95af-ef941c0b9dbc.html