The Activist Group That Used Peaceful Protests to Advance Civil Rights in New Orleans

Among the many participants in the boycott were a group of local college students who were inspired by its success to get more involved as activists. Future leaders of the movement, including Oretha Castle Haley, Jerome Smith, and Rudy Lombard, formed a local chapter of the national, interracial nonviolent organization Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE. Frustrated with the pace and indirect strategies of older generations of civil rights workers in the city, the local CORE chapter set out to challenge segregationists and fight for the enforcement of the rights of African Americans, as protected and defined by federal law. Their work in Louisiana was covered nationally by the CORE-lator, the organization’s official publication based in New York.

Guided by the principles of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., CORE members picketed local businesses and public institutions, held sit-ins at lunch counters and public buildings, took part in freedom rides across the South, and worked in rural Louisiana and Mississippi to register voters. Throughout their efforts, CORE members sang protest songs to inspire unity, fortify their resolve, and spread their mission of racial freedom and equality.

Their actions often put members in dangerous situations, which they countered with nonviolent strategies. Many CORE members were arrested for their work. Haley and Lombard were sent to jail for picketing Canal Street businesses. Doris Jean Castle served six months in jail in Mississippi following a freedom ride arrest. A few years later, Castle was arrested in New Orleans during a sit-in at the segregated cafeteria in City Hall. New Orleans police carried her out of the building in her chair as she remained seated in peaceful protest.

CORE’s public protests, which disrupted and exposed segregated businesses and the evils of an inequitable system, were integral to the process of desegregation in New Orleans. Haley’s contributions were recognized when a portion of Dryades Street was named after her in 1989. In its efforts to preserve and document the civil rights movement in New Orleans, HNOC has recorded oral testimony from local CORE members and others who were involved in the cause, which compose one element of HNOC’s NOLA Resistance project.