Nora Navra Library
1902 St. Bernard Ave.
Free and open to the public.
Mack Guillory III, Emcee.
Julie Dietz, Reader.
The historic fight for civil rights in New Orleans is more complicated than most others in the United States.
Prior to Reconstruction, and the Jim Crow era, free people of color here could legally own property. Free persons of color could even own slaves.
Another anomaly, albeit post-Jim Crow, is how and when our libraries changed from a separate but equal policy to total desegregation. Without fanfare and, at least on paper, our libraries desegregated almost a decade before most of the rest of the deep South. This was an amazing accomplishment for a small, deeply southern town, rooted in antebellum sensibilities and unique, international roots.
Join us for the story of desegregation in New Orleans libraries ca. 1954.
LETTERS READ is the ongoing series of live events in which local performers interpret personal letters written by culturally vital individuals from various times and New Orleans communities and is presented by stationer Nancy Sharon Collins and Antenna