In the early days of FDR;s New Deal, he won wide support, from the the radio priest Father Coughlin to the young Sen. Huey Long from Louisiana, who as governor had provided free text books for kids in public schools and improved roads, building a nes state capitol, and setting a new record for a filibuster in the national Senate. Of course, he was a Democrat (like everyone else in the South who wanted to win an election, and he did not question segregation a white supremacy, the pillars of the Democratic Parties throughout the South. The common phrase "the solid South" meant solidly Democratic, and solidly for segregation and white supremacy.
Like other states after WWII, with expansion of universities, many in New Orleans did not want the added expense of going off to Baton Rough for public education, so there was pressure for a public institution in New Orleans. The Crescent City actually had a number of universities - Tulane (and Newcomb), a private univ. with a high reputation, and like prestigious universities of the North, with a separate college for women. It was a whites only institution. There was Loyola U. of the South, a Roman Catholic institution, which in the 1950s permitted a few Blacks to attend its law school, and perhaps other departments for some colored priests. There 0was Dillard U. a private, Protestant univ. for both young Black men and women (in the 1950s there was at least one white student, and in the 60s a few Northern whites did their "junior year abroad" at Dillard. And there was Xavier U., a Roman Catholic univ. for Blacks, and it had a dental school.
In the 1950s, to make a state univ. more affordable, LSUNO, a branch of Baton Rouge's LSU, was established in New Orleans. Originally, all white, but judicial decisions re school integration in the city, leading to the school crisis of November 1960 when two elementary schools were integrated amid such great hostility it became an international incident. Some Blacks began to enroll at LSUNO. There was one thing forbidden to the new campus - it could not have a football team to compete with LSU's nationally recognized team. Probably to prevent too much integration at LSUNO, SUNO was founded in New Orleans in a rather new middle-class Black subdivision of the city, Pontchartrain Park. It was a commuter college with no dorms. Most students were graduates of the segregated schools of NO, and some chose SUNO because they assumed it would be harder to get a good grade and a degree at the mainly white LSUNO.
At SUNO, all the students were Blacks. At first, all the faculty was Black too, but around 1965 it hired a Korean, and for 1968-69, I was hired to teach History, Vera Krieger in English, and George Haggar, born in Lebanon, to teach Political Science. He had published in a major PS journal.
Back to the poetry contest of Fall 1968, both Vera and I were among the judges. In high school, my debate partner had often partaken in dramatic readings, so I was familiar with that. Our debate team of 4 guys had won state championship, so I was aware of oral readings. I don't recall most of the contestants and their readings. They were conventional. They could have read Wordsworth or Poe or Whitman, or Keats. The title of Val Ferdinand's poem, I can recall, but cannot place it on the blog without trouble - his title was "Nig***s In the Streets," and it was delivered with body motion, emotion, action. After a decade of protests that grew steadily angrier and more violent, his poem and delivery struck a chord of "relevant" a popular word of the era. I don't recall the 3rd judge, but all 3 of us voted for Ferdinand who received the prize.
New Orleans became the center of international news reporters when DA Jim Garrison opened the trial of Clay Shaw for conspiring to murder John Kennedy. Haggar and I could not attend all sessions, but I drove from SUNO to the court when we had off periods, and we saw some significant testimony, like Dr. Finck from the autopsy who was ordered not to complete his probe of the entrance wound in Kennedy's back. His testimony showed that military leaders, NOT DOCTORS, were in charge of Kennedy's autopsy. Both Haggar and I were politically incorrect, and this added to our skepticism of the media. Haggar informed me that the assassin of Robert Kennedy was a Palestinian, and if ever released, he would be a hero in the Middle East. Haggar seemed to be close to Lynn French (a male), Ferdinand, and other students who tended toward activism.
Haggar told me to be at the flag pole around 8am on the first of a month (April? 1969).
I was there when some students pulled the ropes to bring down the American flag, which they replaced with the black, red, and green of Black Nationalism, and they hoisted the new colors for the university. They were not anti-American, but they wanted more from SUNO than a second-rate LSUNO. Just as Du Bois who had studied at Harvard and Berlin, suddenly felt at home when he went to teach at Fisk, so the students now sought to infuse some Black culture into the new school. To achieve this, a boycott of classes began. This n a student strike, demanding better facilities, a Black agenda, and facilities more akin to the "white" LSUNO campus. The student boycott of classes began and lasted weeks, then into the next month. A few students brought their rifles to the uni. Class rooms were empty. At one point the state police (or city police, I forget) were ordered to come on campus with loaded weapons and bring order to the university. Perhaps 40 police with loaded weapons formed a line and began to move slowly from the grass to the buildings. Then a line of say 60 students, perhaps 30 feet directly across from the police line formed. 2 lines, with the Black students were Vera, me, and Haggar, and a Black Muslim young teacher. The police moving slowly closer toward us. The Black line beginning to grow. Then no movement by either side. Both sides staring at each other. I thought then, if someone throws a rock and hits a cop, there will be blood from bullets. Neither side is moving. Glaring at the other. What is going to happen?
The police are armed, but they are in a Black university in a Black residential neighborhood. Armed, they may be nervous. What might a thrown rock do? After a few long minutes, the student line begins to disperse, then disappears. The police go slowly to take over the campus. After several more weeks, the strike was broken. The Governor came to SUNO for the first time and promised some reforms. (According to Haggar, the governor promised him anything he wanted if he would break the strike. Haggar maintained, he did not lead the strike and lacked such power even if he had wanted a deal, which he did not. But in summer 1969, one strike leader suddenly was editing a new Black newspaper, but it did not mean the governor was paying him off.
My promised job that summer was cancelled, and I was told I was now blacklisted. I have no idea if it is true that I was on a blacklist, I only know I have never held another teaching post in the US since SUNO. The talented Val Ferdinand soon headed the Free Southern Theater, changed his name to Kalamu Ya Salaam and then edited a most influential magazine, Black Collegiate for 13 years. Haggar was deported to Canada, wrote a book praising a woman hi-jacker, changed the spelling of his name to Hajjar, and became more involved in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Hajjar is still academic, but defending the cause of Palestinians. To clarify, I am pro-Israeli. I could find no info on Vera, and as she was rather young, attractive woman, she probably married and has a new name. I forgot the name of the young Black Muslim teacher. We all lost our jobs with SUNO, and Ferdinand and other student activists were expelled. In 1977 Salaam and Tom Dent, son of the former Pres. of Dillard U. in NO were on a trip to Beijing. overnight google changed its AI, and I had trouble finding who sponsored (paid for) the the Chinese govt., or the US State Dept. or whom?) Afro poets has this about the trip: " In 1977, he was part of the first African American activist delegation to the People's Republic of China.." I finally found the answer, the trip of some 20 Black American educators was paid for by the Chinese government. Interestingly, on some sites, Salaam mentions 2 other universities he attended, but does not mention SUNO. True, he was expelled, but he was a leader of a major student strike there,. The SUNO strike never gained the national publicity as the one at Cornell U. in New York, which occurred at the same time, but the SUNO strike was certainly a major strike among Black universities.
My main point, for a few minutes on SUNO campus, if someone had thrown a rock and hit a policeman, there could have been students wounded, then trouble for the police as they tried to leave the area, and then trouble in New Orleans with battles between the races. In NO, there was no shooting, no deaths. In Leipzig and Berlin, tense situations relaxed with no killings. In Beijing, things went differently. But I contend, in each case, things could have turned out differently. Hugh Murray
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