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Full Ebook of William Frantz Public School A Story of Race Resistance Resiliency and Recovery in New Orleans Connie L Schaffer Online PDF All Chapter
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WILLIAM FRANTZ
PUBLIC SCHOOL
A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency,
and Recovery in New Orleans
Connie L. Schaffer, Meg White,
and Martha Graham Viator
9781433181238 - - Not for resale. © Peter Lang Verlag
Why should you care about what happened to William Frantz Public School?
Yes, Ruby Bridges entered the iconic doors of William Frantz in 1960, but the
building’s unique role in New Orleans school desegregation is only one part
of the important history of this school. Many additional and equally important
stories have unfolded within its walls and the neighborhoods surrounding it.
These stories matter.
It matters that society has historically marginalized Black students and contin-
ues to do so. It matters that attempts to dismantle systemic racism in schools
and other institutions still face strong resistance, and these issues continue to
deeply divide the United States. It matters that the building remains standing
as an indomitable symbol of the resiliency of public education despite decades
of waning support, misguided accountability, and a city devasted by Hurricane
Katrina. It matters that opportunism, under the guise of recovery, reshaped
public education in New Orleans.
Connie L. Schaffer graduated summa cum laude with a BS from Kansas State University. She
earned her MS and EdD from the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). She taught middle and
high school and is now a faculty member in the UNO College of Education.
Meg White has been an educator for over 30 years. She earned a BA from Marymount University,
an MA from San Jose State University and an EdD from Northcentral University. Currently she is
an Associate Professor of Education at Stockton University.
Martha Graham Viator earned a BA in history from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and
an MA and PhD in history from Auburn University. Recently retired from Rowan University, she
taught in the College of Education after teaching high school history in public schools.
“William Frantz Public School narrates the struggles for civil rights that Ruby Bridges and
this one school in New Orleans endured. But the authors’ account is also America’s story,
its engagement with slavery prior to the Civil War, and the fight to ensure that systemic
racism does not upend the progress the nation has made. The ‘before’ and ‘after’ Hurricane
Katrina narrative of the evolution of neighborhood schools and the devolution in 2006
toward an all-charter school district is compelling. This meticulously researched book is a
sober reminder that Martin Luther King’s metaphoric ‘arc’ leaning toward justice does not
bend neatly.”
—Luis Mirón, President, Advisory Board Education Research Alliance,
Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
“Intense, captivating, and horrible in its reality, William Frantz Public School is a story
overdue for the telling—a must read for those seeking to understand New Orleans’ history
and the lingering impact of White racial superiority upon the Black community and city
infrastructure.”
—Mercedes K. Schneider, Ph.D., Southern Louisiana
native and author, School Choice: The End of Public Education?
“In this comprehensive study of a neighborhood school in New Orleans, authors Schaffer,
White, and Viator take the reader from the Jim Crow South to the 21st century while
reflecting on profound social and economic changes that affected the city over an 80-year
span. The book details how William Frantz Public School, built upon a segregated
foundation, grabbed the nation’s attention as a battleground of school desegregation. Ruby
Bridges’ story became a familiar chapter in the Civil Rights Movement; however, the school
and the community it served suffered greatly from lack of support, and William Frantz
Public School again became a symbol of inequality of the American education system.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, changes in the city’s education system brought new
challenges to the school.
Vol. 65
PETER LANG
New York • Bern • Berlin
Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw
PETER LANG
New York • Bern • Berlin
Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw
Cover photo: The name “William Frantz Public School” remains over the building’s main
entrance, preserved by the school’s designation on the National Register of Historic Places.
(Photograph taken by Mandy Liu, November 2019.)
Part I
1. A Fortress at 3811 North Galvez 3
2. The Exodus 47
3. Do You Hear Me? 109
4. A Building in Crisis 149
Turning Point
Part II
5. And Then It Was After 203
6. Fading from the Public 239
Index 291
Table
4.1. William Frantz Public School: LEAP Test Scores, School
Performance Scores, Performance Category Labels, and
Growth Labels, 1999–2005 158
Images
1.1. 73 Official City Neighborhoods 8
1.2. Ruby Bridges, accompanied by U.S. Federal Marshals 13
1.3. Women protesting school desegregation 14
2.1. Mothers and their children 50
2.2. Ruby Bridges’ drawing of William Frantz Public School 62
5.1. School buses in the aftermath of Katrina 210
5.2. Hurricane Katrina damage to William Frantz Public School 225
6.1. Akili Academy 267
6.2. A tattered flag hangs at the entrance of William Frantz 268
William Frantz Public School: A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency, and Recovery
tells a complex story. We started out writing this book because we wanted to tell
readers what happened to William Frantz Public School in the decades following
its desegregation in 1960. As we learned more about the school, we found common
threads that drew disparate events together and created a multi-faceted story. The
story could not be told without centering the narrative on race and the never-end-
ing resistance to any effort that might end years of de jure and de facto segregation.
The resiliency of those the system oppressed—the poor students, Black students,
and at times demoralized educators of William Frantz Public School—is equally
important as is the so-called recovery of public education in the post-Katrina era.
You may not know the name of the school, but you are likely to recognize
photographs of the building that were taken in 1960. Those pictures show a Black
6-year-old girl and four U.S. Federal Marshals walking into the school. The first-
grade student entering the school was Ruby Bridges, and while she is a prominent
figure in this story, Bridges is not the central character. This book is about events
spanning the history of William Frantz Public School. If the walls of this elemen-
tary school could talk, they would retell the well-known story of its desegregation
in 1960. They would also recount lesser-known, yet important stories, that provide
further examination of public education in New Orleans and its intersections with
race, resistance, resiliency, and recovery.
quote. All other references to bringing together White and Black students within
public school buildings are described as desegregation.
Finally, offensive words and phrases that were spoken at the time to deni-
grate people and describe grotesque actions were given careful contemplation but
ultimately incorporated into this story. Reading disgusting racial slurs and other
vulgarities may shock some of you. Unfortunately, for others these are all-too-fa-
miliar. The pain these cause is not discounted, but the inclusion of these words is
important. To omit or ignore them minimizes the level of vitriol and the extent to
which ignorance, fear, and White supremacy drove people to use them—to shout
them in the presence of children, to record them in personal correspondence, to
state them in public records. If these were shared so openly, you can only imagine
what was spoken privately.
Archival research provided the majority of the information contained in this
book and was substantiated with the work of other scholars and personal commu-
nications between the authors and people in New Orleans. Research conducted in
the Times-Picayune archives, the Orleans Parish School Board Records (Louisiana
Special Collections, Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans), numer-
ous collections at the Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, LA, and the City
Archives (New Orleans Public Library) uncovered much of what is included in the
chapters of this book. Admittedly, newspaper accounts and archive collections are
limited. Journalists can never completely divorce themselves from their personal
perspectives or the ideological underpinnings of their editors. Numerous accounts
were taken from the Times-Picayune, which provided daily and more extensive
coverage than other local newspapers. When possible, other press sources were
also used. Archival collections have limitations as well. Archives include only those
items the originating curator chose to keep and are further influenced by the orga-
nization and prioritization of the collection’s archivist. This is particularly true for
the massive Orleans Parish School Board Records. Much of this collection remains
uncatalogued. It is impossible to know what additional information might be con-
tained in the stacks of documents and cardboard boxes sitting on row after row
of shelves. And of course, Hurricane Katrina destroyed many records within New
Orleans, and the information in countless documents is forever lost. According
to officials from the New Orleans Public Schools and Akili Academy (the cur-
rent occupant of the building), all records contained within William Frantz Public
School were ruined and had to be discarded.
The story of William Frantz Public School unfolds through chronological
chapters, but within these chapters information is organized conceptually more so
than in a strict chronology. Chapter 1, A Fortress at 3811 North Galvez, introduces
you to William Frantz Public School, the neighborhoods that surround it, and the
historic legacy of school racial segregation in New Orleans. The chapter covers the
period from 1938 through November 14, 1960, the first day Ruby Bridges attended
William Frantz Public School. Picking up after that historic day, Chapter 2, The
Exodus, recounts the initial resistance to the school’s desegregation as well as the
continued resistance to desegregating public schools evidenced during the deseg-
regation of the city’s Catholic schools and the mass exodus of White residents
from Orleans Parish during the 1970s. Both chapters draw from the accounts of
Ruby Bridges and others directly involved in the desegregation of William Frantz
Public School. Much information was also provided by a 1961 report written by
the Louisiana Advisory Committee on Civil Rights sent to the U.S. Commission
to Civil Rights, the research of Liva Baker and Robert Crain, and interviews con-
ducted by Alan Wieder. It should be noted, Wieder published his analysis of these
interviews decades later, and he only interviewed White people. Despite the fact
that these personal accounts might have been influenced by the passage of time
and were inherently influenced by the perspectives of Whites, they provided a
rich description of events at William Frantz Public School during the 1960–1961
school year by the people who directly experienced them.
During the 1980s, the Orleans Parish school district faced enormous chal-
lenges, growing dissatisfaction of the public, and increasing accountability
demands. Many students, parents, teachers, administrators, and school officials
demonstrated great resiliency in confronting the litany of challenges. Chapter 3,
Do You Hear Me?, covers this period along with the 1990s, a decade in which mov-
ies and children’s books introduced the story of William Frantz Public School to a
new generation. Chapter 4 concentrates on the first five years of the 21st century.
During this time, the school’s test scores drew significant attention, and the district
was fraught with corruption, mismanagement, and plummeting public opinion.
However, A Building in Crisis, also describes how the school’s past was preserved,
and ultimately its future was protected, by being placed on the National Register
of Historic Places. Content included in Chapters 4 and 5 relies on information
from the Times-Picayune and the Louisiana Department of Education as well as
numerous other sources.
Chapter 5 covers a single school year, 2005–2006. Most of the chapter, And
Then It Was After, focuses on the post-Katrina resiliency of the people of New
Orleans as well as the response of the city, state, and nation and the opportun-
ism of school reformers. The recovery of the city’s schools drew national attention
and resources. Even the name of the public school governing body, the Recovery
School District, conveyed a response to devastation caused by Katrina. However,
many people outside of Louisiana failed to realize the Recovery School District
came into existence before Hurricane Katrina and took over the governance of
most public schools in New Orleans during this year. Chapter 6, Fading From the
Public, describes the new reality for William Frantz Public School and the Orleans
Parish school district that evolved in the years after Katrina. The period included a
confusing maze of charter schools and traditional public schools that transitioned
to and from the authority of the Recovery School District. The story concludes
in 2018 when the Recovery School District relinquished governance of the city’s
public schools to the Orleans Parish School Board. In addition to press accounts,
FEMA documents, personal interviews, and reports from the Cowen Institute for
Public Education Initiatives provided a great deal of valuable information for the
two final chapters.
Why should the story of William Frantz Public School matter to you? You
may read this with an interest in public education, history, or both. Perhaps you
are a native of New Orleans or otherwise connected to the city. Maybe you are a
teacher or somehow associated with the teaching profession. Regardless, this story
matters. It matters that society has historically marginalized Black students and
continues to do so. It matters that the discrimination and systemic racism in public
education is indicative of that which occurs in other social institutions. It matters
that racism deeply divides the United States. Our society can and must do better.
Difficult issues related to race, poverty, corruption, and a natural disaster cul-
minated in New Orleans at the turn of the century. For some, this provided an
opportunity to abandon traditional public education and replace it with a system
comprised of charter schools led by private boards of directors. Hailed as innova-
tive and overdue reform, this new system fundamentally changed public education
in New Orleans. Consider what happened in New Orleans and carefully contem-
plate the ramifications. Why should it matter to you what happened to William
Frantz Public School? When you give up on one public school, one school district,
one city—it becomes easier to give up on the next and the next and the next.
This book represents the culmination of several years of work and dedication. All
of our efforts were motivated by a tremendous determination to tell this story to
the best of our ability. We recognized our limitations, White women who are not
native to New Orleans. In fact, we considered not writing the book because of this.
However, William Frantz Public School kept coming back to us, and ultimately,
we decided to record the rich story it represents.
We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge all who offered their
resources, time, talent, and funding to us. Rowan University, Stockton University,
and the University of Nebraska at Omaha provided financial support through
travel grants and research support. We are grateful for these contributions that
allowed us to immerse ourselves into the research and writing of this book.
We spent weeks engaged in research in New Orleans. During this time, we
were fortunate to have met many people who supported our work. Many thanks to
Phillip Cunningham and his colleagues at the Amistad Research Center, Connie
Phelps and her staff in the Special Collections at the University of New Orleans,
Earl K. Long Library, and Christina Bryant at the New Orleans Public Library
for providing access to numerous collections including archived documents, news-
papers, microfilm, audio tapes, photographs, and public records. Not only did they
provide the items we asked for, they also made helpful suggestions to expand our
research. Without their assistance and expertise this book would be much less
comprehensive. Thank you to Dr. Kenneth Ducote, former Chair of the Ruby
Bridges Foundation and current Executive Director of the Greater New Orleans
Collaborative of Charter Schools. Dr. Ducote offered his time, institutional knowl-
edge of the Orleans Parish school district, and a number of documents that are
not available to the public. Thank you, as well, to Vincent Rossmeier at the Cowen
Institute for Public Education Initiatives for sharing the resources of the Institute
as well as his perspective of the charter school movement.
We extend our gratitude to Mandy Liu for her amazing photographs and
Kelly Fritzsche for her equally amazing attention to the details of our references.
Ian Graham read very rough drafts and deserves special thanks for providing us
constructive and very helpful feedback. Hal Durden, words do not describe how
much we valued your taxi service and personalized tours of the city. More impor-
tantly the excellent dinner conversations that provided respite from long days of
research and the friendship we now have is priceless.
Finally, thank you to the people of New Orleans. You possess a great resil-
iency that was evident in speaking with you about your city and the New Orleans
Public Schools. Many of you—Uber drivers, restaurant servers, hotel reception-
ists, and friends of friends—spoke openly and candidly about public schools, what
happened to your families in the 1960s, or the events before and after Hurricane
Katrina. Almost all of you recounted an individual story to us and, you encouraged
us to tell the story of William Frantz Public School. We admire your unwaver-
ing determination to protect your children and your schools. Through it all, you
showed your undying loyalty to a city you love.
A Fortress at 3811
North Galvez
to be the envy of the antebellum South. As might be expected, these schools exclu-
sively educated White children. With the abolition of slavery and Reconstruction
era policy following the Civil War, public education changed. Louisiana’s 1868
constitution prohibited White-only schools, and during the Reconstruction era,
New Orleans desegregated its public schools. The progressive policy distinguished
New Orleans from other southern cities where public schools remained segregated.
By the early 1870s, approximately one-third of the schools in New Orleans
enrolled both Black and White students.2 Many schools employed both Black
and White teachers. Even the school board consisted of Black and White mem-
bers.3 Although these desegregated schools enjoyed a strong reputation, they also
elicited strong reactions from White parents who could not fathom sending their
children to schools where they would learn and play with children of former slaves.
Tethered by pride, fear, ignorance, or hatred, many Whites longed for their pre-
vious normalcy of demarcations between those privileged because of their White
skin and those oppressed because of their Black skin. Centuries of enslaving Blacks
was impossible to erase from their individual consciousnesses or eradicate from the
systems that perpetuated it.4
Like much of the post-war reconstruction effort, New Orleans’ desegregated
schools could not withstand the era’s economic downturn and simultaneous polit-
ical maneuvers and influence of a resurging White power structure.5 By the 1880s,
New Orleans’ desegregated schools were in jeopardy. Orleans Parish School Board
members publicly proclaimed concern about the deterioration of the city’s schools
and associated this perceived decline with the mixing of Black and White stu-
dents. Over the next decades, the anti-desegregation sentiment mutated into a
deep-seated, racist ideology and the acceptance of White supremacy. This ideology
led to systemic oppression of Black citizens as well as racial segregation in virtually
all aspects of life in New Orleans. Public education was no exception. At the turn
of the century, leaders in New Orleans spoke out against compulsory education
laws fearing this would increase the number of Black voters. By the 1920s, Orleans
Parish School Board members and district administrators openly and vehemently
voiced their belief that White supremacy should guide public policy and stated
their willingness to employ any means, including the use of force, to maintain
inequality between the two races. It was in this context that WFPS came into
existence.6
And so the story begins. In 1937, nearly 100 years after the formation of
public education in New Orleans and within the backdrop of the segregated pub-
lic school system, the Orleans Parish school district authorized construction of
WFPS, an elementary school situated at 3811 North Galvez between Pauline and
Alvar Streets in the Upper Ninth Ward. It was one of the few schools constructed
during the Great Depression.7 The district purchased the property in 1926, for
$14,000, and the new building replaced the existing temporary wooden structure
and accommodated 560 students.8
The parish school board named the school after William Frantz (1845–1930),
a French Quarter jeweler who lived in New Orleans most of his life. A successful
business owner and established civic leader, Frantz served as a member and at one
time as vice president of the Orleans Parish School Board between 1901 and 1920,
the time period during which the board increasingly voiced support for segrega-
tion.9 E. A. Christy, architect of WFPS and many other Orleans Parish schools,
designed the Art Deco structure, which was built by Herman T. Makofsky.10 As
the Great Depression neared its end, the parish school district completed con-
struction of WFPS for under $150,000 and in less than eight months. Despite its
economical price tag, the contrasting light-colored brick and cast-cement struc-
ture exemplified the modernistic, albeit subdued, Art Deco style of the time. By far
the tallest structure in the neighborhood, the school and the playground occupied
most of a city block. WFPS stood as a central structure within the neighbor-
hood. A salient architectural feature, large geometric capital letters above the front
entrance doors, unmistakably identified the building as “William Frantz Public
School.” This highly visible proclamation of WFPS as a public school is as remark-
able today as it was in the 1930s.
Under this name, six steps led to the school’s recessed, double-doored
entrance. Fairly ordinary to adults, the steps likely appeared impressive to children
who entered the school. Low relief, dentin-patterned panels surrounded the entry-
way, emphasizing the geometric patterns of the building. Art Deco light fixtures
adorned either side of the doors and three chevron-patterned reliefs decorated the
roofline directly above the entryway. Oversized, rectangular, multi-paned windows
allowed natural light into the school from both the front and back of the build-
ing. Smaller dentin-framed entrances provided additional access on both sides of
the building. Within the three-story building, wood floors and one central and
two side staircases led to 14 spacious classrooms on either side of the hallways.11
Glass-paned classroom doors allowed students to observe activity in the hallways,
and those walking through the hallways could see into the classrooms. The school
boasted state-of-the-art features such as steam heat, sprinklers, a cafeteria, tele-
phones, and a public address system as well as classrooms specifically designated
for a progressive curriculum for the era, including kindergarten as well as what, at
the time, was referred to as manual training, and domestic science.12 The building
officially opened its doors in September 1938 under the principalship of Miss
Carrie M. Grehan. Miss Grehan and 11 WFPS teachers welcomed 355 kinder-
garten through seventh-grade students.13
When the school opened, Orleans Parish school district designated it for ele-
mentary-aged White children who lived in the White working-class residential
area known as the Florida neighborhood, nestled in the Upper Ninth Ward of New
Orleans. Originally a lowland swamp filled with cypress trees, the Florida neigh-
borhood sat precipitously close to sea level. The area once served as a landfill, and
it remained an underdeveloped section of New Orleans until the 1890s and early
1900s. Located west of the polluted Industrial Canal, south of Lake Pontchartrain,
but set back away from the Mississippi River to its south, the Florida district
became increasingly populated in the 1930s when the city’s Black residents were
encouraged to purchase small, shotgun-style homes in the neighborhood. More
and more families moved into these small wood-framed row homes because they
were affordable and quickly constructed. Just a few years before building WFPS,
the district opened Johnson Cornelius Lockett Public School on nearby Law
Street for the community’s elementary-aged Black children. At the time of WFPS
opening, district Superintendent Nicholas Bauer not only accepted segregation
but also White supremacy. Bauer had served on the Board of Curators for the
Louisiana State Museum, an organization that avowed White supremacy as a rea-
sonable tenet of government. Bauer himself publicly affirmed White supremacy
when he stated his beliefs that educating Black students was a difficult problem
because they had questionable character and academic capacity for only a fifth-
grade education.14
At the time WFPS was built, the city of New Orleans was one of the larg-
est cities in the United States, but its rate of growth fell behind that of other
metropolitan areas. Once the third largest U.S. city, New Orleans now ranked
as the country’s fifteenth largest city with a population of just under 500,000.
Of the overall population, 70% of New Orleans’ residents were White, and 30%
were Black.15 Although still a predominantly White city, the population of New
Orleans began to look significantly different than the population of Louisiana.
By 1937, pressure of a growing population of New Orleans, resulting from rural
to urban migration brought on by the Depression, provided the impetus to build
WFPS as well as other schools throughout the city. In the preceding decades,
the population of New Orleans increased as did the population throughout the
State of Louisiana. Interestingly, as the state became more populous, the popula-
tion became increasingly White. In fact, the rate of White population growth far
exceeded the growth rate of the Black population. The exception to this pattern
was found in New Orleans where the Black population increased more rapidly
than the White population.16
Unlike other cities in the South, New Orleans housing patterns resembled a
checkerboard consisting of alternating White and Black neighborhoods. The city
Image 1.1: 73 Official City Neighborhoods. William Frantz Public School is located at 3811 North
Galvez, near the Florida and Desire neighborhoods. (New Orleans City Planning Commission.)
Pleasure, and Piety—characterized the aspirations of officials who built the proj-
ects as well as those who moved into them. However, to build the Desire housing
project, the city destroyed an existing and thriving Black community that included
multiple Black-owned businesses, nine churches with predominantly Black con-
gregants, and the legendary Hideaway Club where the area’s most famous resident,
Fats Domino, launched his career.23 But the new housing offered electricity and
running water, amenities many poor people did not have in their previous homes.
Residents described the units as spacious, with hardwood floors, new cabinets,
appliances, and grounds neatly manicured with trees and shrubs. Families living in
the projects hung laundry on clotheslines. Children played in the courtyards where
people slept on hot evenings.24 Yet saturated ground, unpaved streets, and inade-
quate infrastructure plagued the Desire projects from its origin.25 Prior to opening
the Desire projects, Mayor de Lesseps (Chep) Morrison was warned of the area’s
compromised sidewalks, streets, sewers, and gas and water mains. Despite the
warning, the city built the housing project and did little to address the concerns.
Unlike the brick buildings in the Florida project, Desire’s 262 buildings with
1,860 housing units26 consisted of poorly constructed wooden-framed structures
with brick facades.27 An era of frugal spending coupled with high demand in the
Housing Authority along with Mayor Morrison’s aggressive building plans and his
obsession with moving Black citizens from neighborhoods he saw as slums and
into public housing compromised the structural integrity of the projects.28 Almost
immediately, the unstable ground, humidity, and termites led to structural damage.
Soon after the projects’ opening, William Aubert and Leontine Goins Luke from
the Ninth Ward Civic and Improvement League lobbied the city for better streets,
sewage systems, and garbage services; they also formed Black PTA groups and led
Black-voter registration drives.29
Other community activists successfully pressured officials to build a clinic and
a childcare facility in the Desire neighborhood. The childcare resources, regret-
table, came too late to save two children who were left unattended while their
mother looked for work and died in a house fire.30 The activists also fought to
improve infrastructure and services in the Ninth Ward and petitioned Orleans
Parish School Board to make school improvements throughout the district. This
early community advocacy and activism served as a training ground for Aubert and
Luke. Both emerged as prominent leaders in the efforts to desegregate Orleans
Parish school district.31 In addition to the Ninth Ward Civic League, The Louisiana
Weekly, the newspaper representing the perspective of New Orleans’ Black com-
munity, repeatedly reported on the deplorable conditions in the all-Black schools.32
Within a year of opening, 14,000 people most of whom were Black and dis-
placed by increased housing costs in other parts of the city, moved into the Desire
housing projects. By 1960, 27,500 children and 15,500 adults lived in the Desire
neighborhood, including a young, Black child named Ruby Bridges whose fam-
ily moved from Mississippi to the area in 1958. Many of the families lived on
less than $1,300 per year and paid between $16 and $25 per month for rent.33
Schools in the neighborhood, facing the same structural challenges found in the
housing units, struggled to accommodate the number of children. The Orleans
Parish School Board built no schools between 1941 and 1951.34 As a result, exist-
ing neighborhood schools throughout the city faced overcrowding. The problem
was particularly acute in Desire. Due to the severe overcrowding, many Black
children attended school for only a fraction of the time as their White peers liv-
ing in the Florida neighborhood. The Orleans Parish School Board did little to
address the overcrowded schools, poor facilities, and reduced instructional time
in district’s schools for Black children. The schools relied on private philanthropic
in the South was $88.70; for Blacks it was $46.95. In Louisiana the disparity was
even greater. The state spent $113.30 per White student, more than the average
of its neighboring southern states. However, it only spent $34.06 per Black stu-
dent, less than the average of its southern counterparts. Not only did expendi-
tures differ between Black and White students, the number of school days also
varied. In Louisiana, White students went to school 180 days each year, but Black
students attended an average of 156.7 days per year.43 At elementary schools,
playground space at White schools far exceeded that found at Black schools.
Based on the square feet of playground space per pupil, fewer than 15% of Black
elementary schools met the minimum standard. Perhaps due to overcrowding,
few Black elementary schools offered kindergarten classes. By the 1950s, nearly
every White elementary school offered kindergarten compared to less than 45%
of Black elementary schools.44 To make matters worse, Louisiana allowed local
governments to channel funds earmarked for Black schools, such as Lockett, to
other purposes.45
In 1952, the Orleans Parish school district’s Office of Planning and
Construction proposed a plan to alleviate crowding at Black schools. The initial
plan called for a large central campus that would be home to the Black schools,
George Washington Carver Junior and Senior High Schools. The proposed
campus, referred to as a school village, would eventually expand to include more
schools for Black students on a site accessible by only one or two streets, and sur-
rounded by railroad tracks, a drainage canal, and the massive Industrial Canal. The
single campus site provided a way for the district to avoid purchasing multiple,
higher-priced building sites for Black schools. The plan was also seen as a means
to avoid potential court action regarding school desegregation. If the district built
new and improved schools for Black students, it could reduce the platooning in
Black schools. This might quell the simmering opposition to the district’s current
segregation practices or at the very least, put it in a better position to defend sep-
arate-but-equal public schools. The controversial program was fraught with prob-
lems, including how to transport up to 10,000 Black students to the campus at a
time when the district had only 39 buses, all of which were designated for White
students.46 While planning for the construction of a single, separate campus for
Black students, the district continued to invest in individual White schools. For
example, on several different occasions in the 1950s, Orleans Parish school dis-
trict allocated funds for improvements and maintenance for WFPS that included
building a standalone cafeteria.47 The message rang clear; Louisiana’s strong com-
mitment to the education of its White, wealthier children paralleled an equally
strong commitment to keep its Black, poor residents uneducated and isolated, and
thus economically and politically powerless.
The Orleans Parish school board governed education in the Florida neighbor-
hood including at WFPS, and the district followed the same separate and unequal
pattern as the rest of Louisiana. Louisiana’s system of government created a struc-
ture in which school districts oversaw public education in geopolitical areas known
as parishes, similar to counties in other states. The boundaries in New Orleans
delineated identical borders for Orleans Parish, the parish school district, and the
city.48 The city’s residents elected Orleans Parish School Board members to gov-
ern its schools, and all schools fell under the jurisdiction of the school district. In
nearby parishes ( Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. James, St.
John, and St. Tammany), other school boards oversaw the public schools located
within their boundaries.49 For 22 years after the Orleans Parish school district
opened WFPS, the school board continued to designate the school as a White-
only building. WFPS enrollment steadily increased between 1938 and 1960. Ten
years after opening, 550 students attended WFPS. In the following decade, enroll-
ment continued the upward trend, reaching over 600 students in 1957. For many
of these years, WFPS had consistent leadership under Zita Kevlin who served as
principal for over 15 years. The number of teachers varied, but typically hovered
between 15 and 20.
Few people, other than residents living in the working-class neighborhood
surrounding it, recognized or had ever heard of WFPS prior to 1960. That changed
on November 14, 1960, when the world watched a sole first-grade Black girl, Ruby
Bridges, ascend the steps and enter the doors of WFPS. Bridges, accompanied by
U.S. Federal Marshals, encountered a highly agitated group of protesters as well
as members of the press as she arrived at WFPS. Using a World War II metaphor
referencing the onset of a historic and intense campaign that shaped history, the
press deemed November 14, 1960, as D-day in New Orleans.50 The metaphor
resonated with many. For weeks before and after, people repeatedly used wartime
references such as, “attacks on the Southern way of life,” “threats to America,” and
“a call to arms,” to describe school desegregation and their response to it. And in
rhetoric harkening back to the school’s dedication ceremony, some referred to the
need to “preserve democracy.”
Photographs of WFPS appeared in newspapers and on newsreels across the
United States and beyond within days of Bridges’ enrollment, erasing WFPS’s
persona as an unassuming neighborhood elementary school (see Image 1.2).
Propelled into an iconic role in America’s story of school desegregation, WFPS
entered into the national and tumultuous saga of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement
of the 1960s. Beyond the turbulence of the 1960s, WFPS became permanently
embedded in Americana—the history, culture, and narrative representative of the
nation’s struggle to address deep-seated systems of racism. At the time, the popular
Image 1.2: Ruby Bridges, accompanied by U.S. Federal Marshals, began attending William Frantz
Public School in November 1960. (Paul Slade/Paris Match Archive via Getty Images.)
press repeatedly featured WFPS, introducing the school to Americans across the
country. In The New Yorker, John Updike, portrayed WFPS as “blasphemed” and
the protesters outside the school as “segregationist banshees.”51 The banshees, also
known as the cheerleaders, referred to White women who day-after-day stood
outside WFPS protesting Bridges’ enrollment in the school (see Image 1.3).
Americans were reminded of the events in following years when Pulitzer Prize
author John Steinbeck recounted how he had been shocked and sickened after
witnessing scenes from New Orleans.52 And in a riveting illustration, Norman
Rockwell visualized the ugliness engulfing WFPS in his famous painting, “The
Problem We All Live With,” which was featured in Look magazine. Look’s massive
circulation depicted Bridges, walking past a backdrop of a white wall graffitied
with the word “NIGGER” and splattered by a thrown tomato as she made her way
to WFPS.53 In 1960 Bridges entered WFPS, and WFPS entered into the living
rooms and collective psyche of millions of Americans.
As the World War II D-day metaphor implied, numerous decisions and
actions preceded and followed the seminal battle on November 14, 1960. Staunch
racism roused those who fought to keep Bridges out of WFPS and to main-
tain segregated schools in New Orleans. An equally ardent commitment to con-
front racism and the city’s segregated schools galvanized those who fought to get
Image 1.3: Women protesting school desegregation lined North Galvez Street in December 1960.
(Paul Slade/Paris Match Archive via Getty Images.)
Bridges into WFPS. Both sides justified their ideology and actions on the basis
of protecting democracy. Bridges’ entry into WFPS began what would be referred
to as the New Orleans School Crisis, a crisis which steeped for decades and roils
yet today.54
To understand the WFPS Bridges entered in November 1960 requires addi-
tional background information on historic challenges to school segregation in
New Orleans. To understand school segregation in New Orleans requires a fur-
ther step back to examine Plessy v. Ferguson, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court
decision that authorized racial segregation.55 In 1892, police arrested Homer
Plessy, a Black man, in a New Orleans rail yard located less than two miles
from the future site of WFPS. Plessy was arrested after refusing to relinquish
his train seat to a White passenger. A New Orleans court convicted Plessy of
violating an 1890 Louisiana law prohibiting people of different races from trav-
eling together on railway cars. Plessy appealed the decision and challenged the
laws that legally segregated many public spaces in New Orleans and throughout
the South. Plessy asserted the law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, Plessy believed the
state law violated the amendment’s intent to guard the civil rights of U.S. citizens.
Plessy’s case worked its way through the lower courts and ultimately reached
the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1896, the Court ruled against Plessy. The Court’s
decision established the legal precedent that the protections of the Fourteenth
Amendment applied only to political and civil rights such as voting and jury
service, not social rights like sitting in an all-White railroad car. The Plessy deci-
sion sanctioned segregated public facilities as long as Blacks were offered equal
facilities. Justice John Harlan disagreed with the other justices, and in his dissent-
ing opinion predicted the expansion of segregation and the incitement of racism
the decision would spur. Harlan’s conjecture proved accurate and foreshadowed
events that would transpire at WFPS in 1960.
For 50 years following the Plessy ruling, few southern Whites questioned
the cultural and legal paradigm of separate-but-equal; for them the concept was
inconsequential. For Blacks, the profound and inescapable impact seeped into
every facet of life, including public education. The Plessy case set legal precedence
for numerous separate-but-equal Jim Crow laws throughout the United States. In
the decades following the Plessy ruling, and despite continued U.S. Supreme Court
decisions upholding Jim Crow laws, people pressed to abolish separate-but-equal
policies and practices.
The principles underlying the ideology of Jim Crow, both the actual laws as
well as the cultural mores, started to be called into question across the United
States in the mid-20th century. In New Orleans, Earl Benjamin Bush challenged
the separate-but-equal education policies of the Orleans Parish School Board.
The lack of support given to schools for Black students, who comprised 60% of
the student population in New Orleans, angered their parents.56 In November of
1951, Aubert and Luke, Ninth Ward Civic and Improvement League activists
who had earlier challenged the living conditions in the Desire neighborhood, held
a meeting at the Macarty School for Black students. After years of protesting for
equal schools but having their demands ignored, the Ninth Ward Civic League
determined it would initiate a lawsuit against the school board. Aubert and Luke
convinced several families to act as plaintiffs and filed a lawsuit against the school
board with the assistance of A. P. Tureaud, a Black attorney and chief legal counsel
of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).57
In Aubert v. Orleans Parish School Board,58 the Ninth Ward Civic League sought
better conditions within the Black schools. The school board considered the com-
plaints but delayed its official response for years. Finally, the board officially denied
the existence of any substantial inequality between Black and White schools and
requested the case be dismissed. Undeterred, Tureaud continued to publicly push
the federal courts to address the reprehensible conditions in the Black schools.
After two years of legal wrangling between Aubert and the school board, U.S.
District Judge Herbert Christenberry allowed the plaintiffs to proceed with
their case.
The NAACP wanted to take action beyond the Aubert case and challenge
segregation as a whole. In 1952, NAACP attorney Tureaud filed a new lawsuit in
federal district court in New Orleans on behalf of several Black parents, including
Ninth Ward parent Earl Bush. An insurance salesman, father of eight school-aged
children, and president of the Macarty PTA, Bush volunteered his children to be
lead plaintiffs in the suit. Bush et al. v. Orleans Parish School Board59 challenged
the constitutionality of racial segregation in the Orleans Parish school district.
Thurgood Marshall, at the time working for the Legal Defense and Educational
Fund of the NAACP, served as Tureaud’s co-counsel. Similar to Plessy, the suit
claimed Louisiana statutes mandating school segregation violated the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The
scope of the suit reached well beyond improving the conditions of New Orleans’
Black schools as it directly challenged the Plessy ruling. Ultimately, Bush, under
advisement of Tureaud, decided to stay his case. The decision to pause the Bush
lawsuit allowed Marshall and the NAACP to shepherd a similar school segrega-
tion challenge in Topeka, Kansas.
In the 1950s conditions that prompted the Bush case existed in many U.S. pub-
lic schools. White children attended White-only neighborhood schools. Black
children attended separate schools in substandard buildings with insufficient,
inadequate, and dated materials. In some places, Black children had to travel a con-
siderable distance from their homes to attend school. In Kansas, Oliver Brown and
18 other plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit against the Board of Education of
Topeka. As in the Bush case, Brown claimed racial segregation violated the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Brown’s 8-year-old daughter,
Linda, attended the all-Black Monroe Elementary School. To get to Monroe
Elementary each day, she walked more than a mile to school, and much of this
distance passed through a railroad switch yard, to catch a bus to school. School
policy prohibited her from attending the all-White elementary school only seven
blocks from the Brown’s home.60
The cases of the Topeka plaintiffs consolidated under the name Brown v. Board
of Education. It was rumored the NAACP chose Brown as the lead plaintiff on the
lawsuit because of the possible symbolic impact his last name might have on the
case. Whether intentional or not, a case with a plaintiff named Brown created
an allegory difficult to escape. Children of color, so long denied equal education,
wanted access to the same education as White children. Their challenge, however,
went beyond education. To most Americans, public schools provided a familiar
and almost personalized context for the much broader Civil Rights Movement.
During the Civil Rights Movement, both sides, the NAACP as well as their
staunchest enemies, strategically used children and public schools to evoke the
passions of the American people.
Brown v. Board of Education reached the U.S. Supreme Court in the fall of
1953. While the facts of the Bush and Brown cases differed, each centered on the
constitutionality of segregation in public schools. Lawyers for the Topeka Board of
Education argued against Brown’s claim, saying Monroe Elementary School was
identical to Topeka’s White schools. NAACP attorney Marshall represented the
plaintiffs in the Brown case and argued that even if the facilities were equal, segre-
gation was detrimental to Black children. The NAACP legal team devised a plan
to target Jim Crow laws by striking at them where they perceived them to be the
weakest—public education.61 Marshall, like Aubert, Luke, Bush, and many others
in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, knew the existing school segregation system resulted
in educational discrepancies, too numerous, too substantial, and too consequential
to be ignored. The U.S. Supreme Court delivered its decision on the Brown case
in May 1954. The unanimous ruling overturned Plessy and affirmed the NAACP’s
strategy. In the Court’s opinion, Chief Justice Earl Warren stated,
The Brown case initiated a paradigm shift like no other experienced in the
previous 100 years of U.S. public education. Many civil rights leaders hailed the
decision as the Supreme Court’s most significant opinion of the 20th century.63
In a New York Times editorial, an unknown author declared the high court had
“reaffirmed its faith and the underlying American faith in the equality of all men
and all children before the law.”64 The Louisiana Weekly, the press voice of New
Orleans’ Black community, ran a front-page story on the ruling and hailed it as
the most important decision affecting its readers since the 1857 Dred Scott case.65
Yet, in New Orleans’ White community there was little praise for the ruling. The
Times-Picayune reported that the Orleans Parish School Board president admitted
the city’s Black schools were inferior to its White schools, but he disparaged the
ruling and believed rapid desegregation would lead to chaos. He preferred delaying
desegregation for as much as 50 years.66 While the board president wished for a
50-year delay, it would take almost six years to the day of his comments before the
school district would begin its desegregation process at WFPS.
In 1955, a full year after the Brown decision, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a
directive outlining how school desegregation should proceed. Chief Justice Warren
granted lower federal courts the authority to order public school districts within
their jurisdiction to desegregate schools with “all deliberate speed.” The phrase,
“all deliberate speed,” had a long and rich legal history dating back to Augustus
Caesar. Throughout history, the phrase had been used in situations in which gov-
ernments wished to shift responsibility for implementation to individual entities.
Abraham Lincoln recognized the importance of the concept and referred to it
during discussion of the emancipation of slaves in the United States.67 The historic
phrase became pivotal in the U.S. school desegregation movement when Warren,
fearing school desegregation would pose a great challenge, chose vague language
to describe the rate at which it should occur. The phrase exonerated the high court
from accusations that it had pushed desegregation too quickly on to the states.
Warren anticipated some states would refuse to adhere to the Supreme Court’s
decision. In his mind, the phrase bought the states and the country added time to
wrestle with the divisive issue.
After the decision, attempts to desegregate schools precipitated demon-
strations, heated rhetoric, and other forms of protest in the South. Reaction in
Little Rock, Arkansas exemplified this. In 1957, nine Black students attempted
to enroll in Little Rock’s Central High School. The city erupted in protest, forc-
ing Governor Orval Faubus to declare a state of emergency and to mobilize the
Arkansas National Guard. School officials allowed the students to register only
after President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered federal troops to enforce the
desegregation laws. Protests continued outside the school throughout the year and
stigmatized the city and state as a racist hotbed and ominously foreshadowed what
might lie ahead for WFPS and New Orleans.
At approximately the same time Little Rock’s school desegregation struggles
were front-page news, a panel of federal district court judges in New Orleans,
composed of Judges Wayne Borah, Herbert Christenberry, and J. Skelly Wright,
ruled that, in light of the Brown decision, the Louisiana Constitution and state
statutes requiring school segregation violated the U.S. Constitution.68 Louisiana,
steadfast in its determination and perseverance, relentlessly resisted the panel’s
ruling and the desegregation of its schools. Wright became the central fixture in
numerous legal clashes between the federal courts, the State of Louisiana, and the
Orleans Parish school district. Wright, a product of New Orleans’ segregated pub-
lic schools, graduated from the all-White McDonogh 7 Elementary School and
all-male, all-White Warren Easton High School. He attended college at Loyola
University at the time when it did not admit Black students. All three schools
were located within a seven-mile radius of WFPS. Personally, Wright held no
strong opinions for or against the desegregation of schools. Professionally, he had
little judicial expertise or experience with desegregation and at times doubted his
actions and decisions related to such issues.69 However, between 1952 and 1962,
Wright issued injunctions against virtually every official in the State of Louisiana
including the governor, attorney general, and superintendent of education, as well
as the state police, National Guard, district attorneys, sheriffs, mayors, and police
chiefs. In perhaps his boldest move, he issued an injunction against the entire
Louisiana legislature.70
Judge Wright’s judicial decisions drew intense reaction and unyielding defi-
ance in Louisiana. Over the next several years the Louisiana legislature enacted
legislation intending to prevent court-ordered school desegregation. The legislative
actions significantly slowed desegregation and made a farce of the deliberate speed
noted in Chief Justice Warren’s original opinion. The Orleans Parish School Board
reacted defiantly to the ruling from Judges Borah, Christenberry, and Wright as
well. Despite school board attorney Sam Rosenberg’s warnings of their precarious
legal standing, members of the school board declared they would absolutely not
desegregate the district’s schools. The board resolved to use all possible legal means
to prevent the desegregation of its schools and hired a special attorney and widely
recognized segregationist, Gerald Rault, to manage the district’s desegregation
issues. The State of Louisiana subsidized Rault’s salary, and he worked closely with
the state’s attorney general.71
The Orleans Parish School Board moved toward desegregation with little
speed but faced increasing pressure to address the city’s separate-but-unequal
schools. During the 1959–1960 school year, capacity at the school district’s White
schools stood at 73%, while Black-school capacity stood at 114%.72 At this time,
534 students were registered at WFPS and 1,642 at its counterpart for Black
students, Lockett Elementary School. The student-to-teacher ratio at Lockett
was nearly five times greater than that of WFPS. Across the city, overcrowding
impacted over 1,500 Black students in Orleans Parish school district. The district
solved the overcrowded Black schools by continuing its practice of platooning.73
In April 1959, Orleans Parish School Board member Lloyd Rittiner, a segre-
gationist but also a pragmatist, became president of the board. In one of his first
initiatives as board president, Rittiner convinced the school board to poll parents
to gauge their support for school desegregation. The board mailed postcards to
parents asking if they preferred: (1) to keep the schools open with limited deseg-
regation or (2) to close schools rather than begin a limited desegregation plan.
Rittiner hypothesized parents would favor the first option and further speculated
this potential show of parental preference for keeping schools open would make
any desegregation action taken by the Orleans Parish School Board less contro-
versial and incendiary. He believed the poll would force the mayor and business
community to publicly voice support of desegregating the schools and also allevi-
ate public pressure on the school board.74
Rittiner misjudged the situation on multiple points. Over 80% of White par-
ents indicated they would rather close the schools than open them with even a
limited amount of desegregation. The results stunned the board president.75 Much
less shocking, the response of Black parents differed from White parents. An over-
whelming 94% of Black parents voted to keep schools open.76 Rittiner decided the
school board would disregard the input of Black parents and focus its attention
on limiting school desegregation. Rittiner based his decision on the premise that
White people, not Black people, supported the schools and voted the Orleans
Parish School Board members into office. Rittiner was further exasperated when
the mayor and the business community remained silent, refusing to voice support
of the board or the idea of limited desegregation.77
Rittiner was not alone in misjudging his constituents. Two years earlier and to
the dismay of 500,000 Catholics in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Archbishop
Joseph Rummel announced the city’s parochial schools would begin a grade-per-
year desegregation process in the fall 1957. Church members reacted immediately.
Emile Wagner, a prominent Catholic and Orleans Parish School Board member
led those opposed to desegregating the parochial schools. Ironically, Wagner and
Judge Wright had been close friends at Loyola University, and it was Wright who
had recommended Wagner for the school board. Wagner made a direct appeal to
the Pope asking him to renounce Rummel’s plan. Although the Vatican rebuked
Wagner, many of New Orleans’ Catholic residents showed their support for keep-
ing the Catholic schools segregated by withholding contributions to their churches.
Rumors circulated that the State of Louisiana, in a signal of statewide opposition,
might rescind the Church’s tax-exempt status. Wagner organized an opposition
group, the Association of Catholic Laymen. In response, the archbishop threat-
ened to excommunicate members of the group. Ultimately, Rummel lacked the
fortitude or support to keep fighting Wagner and rescinded his earlier decree. As
the public schools begin desegregating in 1960, the elderly Rummel, hampered
by a recent injury, was unable to work in tandem with the Orleans Parish school
district and desegregate the parochial schools. The absence of Rummel’s active
leadership and pressure from the Church’s congregants stalled the desegregation
of the Catholic schools until 1962.78
School board member Wagner and his followers were far from alone in
resisting school desegregation as many people throughout Louisiana vehemently
opposed desegregation and harbored deep-seated racism. These feelings drew
them to a formidable, contentious, and uncompromising leader, Leander Perez,
who unequivocally viewed most Blacks as illegitimate and all Blacks as intellectu-
ally and morally inferior to Whites. He quite willingly and publicly affirmed this
belief on many occasions. A wealthy lawyer from Plaquemines Parish known as
the pit bull and political czar of segregation, Perez never held an elected seat in the
Louisiana legislature. That detail did not deter him. Perez worked closely with a
legislative colleague from the northern rural portion of the state, William Rainich,
and Perez relished in the power and public attention his financial standing and
political associations afforded him.79 Rainich, elected to the Louisiana Senate in
1948, drew from previous experience from his time in the Louisiana House of
Representatives. As Louisiana reacted to the various federal court rulings, Rainich
hoped the state would emerge as a model for thwarting federal government over-
reach and for obstructing the efforts of the NAACP.80 With Rainich’s legislative
networks and Perez’s passion, the two men led many of the legislative efforts to
block school desegregation.
Perez, the ringleader of the resistance to school desegregation, embodied the
passion of southern segregationists and combined this with substantial legisla-
tive acumen and relentless disdain for the federal government. As early as 1955,
Perez and Senator Rainich introduced the White Citizens’ Council (a multi-state
radical White supremacist organization with roots in Mississippi) to Louisiana.
Dr. Emmett L. Irwin served as the official leader of the New Orleans chapter,
but it was Perez’s impassioned and fervent speeches that drew more and more
people into the organization. Within a year, the Council boasted approximately
75,000 members from all walks of life in Louisiana, with a third of these from
New Orleans. Like Perez, many of the members belonged to the Catholic Church,
despite the Church’s strong stance against the organization.81
By the fall of 1955, the White Citizens’ Council led segregationist efforts
across Louisiana as well as within New Orleans. Within a short time, Council
chapters existed in over half of Louisiana’s parishes and boasted statewide mem-
bership of 100,000.82 It collected 5,000 signatures on a petition urging the Orleans
Parish School Board to block school desegregation.83 Perez provided legal and
financial assistance to the New Orleans chapter. The largest of the Council groups,
the New Orleans chapter included over 50,000 members at one time and could
easily attract thousands of Whites to rallies to listen to Perez speak.84
Hoping to exclude Black children from all-White schools, White Citizens’
Council leaders Rainich and Perez also pressured the Louisiana legislature to
intervene. In 1958, the Louisiana legislature passed several measures to weaken
desegregation efforts including laws allowing the governor to close any school that
desegregated, providing state funds to any students seeking to leave the traditional
public schools, and granting the state sweeping power to control all schools.85
Convinced Whites would choose private schools over segregated public schools,
particularly if Louisiana created a system to make private schools affordable, Perez
also advocated expanding the role and number of private schools. For a short time,
school board President Rittiner belonged to the White Citizens’ Council but
eventually left the group.86 In contrast, fellow board member Wagner remained
« Vita mea tua est, » respondit ille, cùm interim satis firmatus
fortitudinem pristinam in animum revocâsset. « Age verò, Robinson
exclamat, absit ut barbari inhumana exsequantur consilia ! Quæ
constituerim ego, tibi inter eundum exponam ; nunc non loquendi,
sed agendi tempus est. »
Quo facto, duo sclopeta ponit humi, tertium manu tenet : quod
Vendredi imitatus est. Tum funem incendiarium rimulæ tormenti
admovet. Ignem pulvis concipit ; globus exploditur. Fragore audito,
barbari è cespitibus ad terram procidunt, quasi omnes unà occisi,
Robinson et socius in exitum rei intenti erectique, ad pugnam, si
necesse foret, cætera parant. Mox verò barbari, terrore, quo primùm
perculsi fuerant, parumper sedato, in pedes se erigunt. Pavidiores
ad scaphas profugiunt, fortiores arma capiunt.
« Robinson. »
Has leges scriptas Hispanus in vernaculum sermonem vertit.
Quo facto, ille et calamis et atramento instruitur, ut populares ejus
nomen legibus propositis priùs subscribant, quàm proficiscantur.
Tum viaticis scaphæ impositis, magnâ cum pietate valedicunt
Robinsoni socioque, et vela faciunt.
Tum illi toti ab luctu versi in iram, ducem secuti sunt ; Vendredi
laqueos, quibus illi ligati fuerant, secum ferente. Jam ad proximum
accedunt, in faciem prostratum, et somno tam alto oppressum, ut,
manibus pedibusque vinctis, os ei priùs obstruxerint quam penitùs
experrectus esset. Manibus à tergo revinctis, in eodem statu
immotus manere jubetur ; qui, si vel minimam vocem ediderit,
jugulabitur.