Witness to Change: From Jim Crow to Political Empowerment

Witness to Change: From Jim Crow to Political Empowerment

In 1950s New Orleans, a young woman steps into her white tulle gown and glides down the long hallway of her parentsâ€™ house into the front garden. Her father, a respected surgeon, drives her downtown, where she will make her debut into Negro society.

Though mesmerized by the rituals, Sybil Haydel, 17, cannot help but note their irony in a world where she daily faces the barriers and insults of Jim Crow.

Thirteen years later, Sybil lies sleepless in bed next to her husband, Dutch Morial. Medgar Evers, the NAACPâ€™s national leader, has just been murdered in Mississippi. Dutch, the organizationâ€™s New Orleansâ€™ president, has just received another chilling death threat. In halting whispers, the couple discusses how to protect their three young children.

The Morials first become legal, then political, activists. Testing Brown v Board of Education, Sybil attempts to enroll at Tulane and Loyola. She and Dutch challenge a statute restricting political activities of public school teachers. Barred from the League of Women Voters, Sybil forms an organization to help register Negroes held back from voting. After serving as judge and Louisiana legislator, Dutch is elected New Orleansâ€™ first black mayor.

Sybilâ€™s memoir reveals a woman whose intelligence overrides the clichÃ©s of racial division. In its pages, we catch rare glimpses of black professionals in an earlier New Orleans, when races, though socially isolated, lived side by side; when social connections helped to circumvent Jim Crow; when African-American culture forged New Orleansâ€”and Americanâ€”identity.

Through loving eyes, Sybil traces the rise of her sons and daughters: After Dutchâ€™s death, Marc Morial served two terms as New Orleans mayor. Sybilâ€™s other childrenâ€”a physician, a public policy strategist, a community development director, and a judgeâ€”lead and serve their communities before, and after, Hurricane Katrinaâ€™s devastation.

Ambassador Andrew Young notes: It is doubtful that New Orleans could have produced two mayors with the dynamic, creative, and visionary leadership of â€˜Dutchâ€™ and Marc without a wife and mother of Sybilâ€™s loving strength, intelligence, and moral courage. But the life she lived in the crucible times, and her perception of the civil rights movement in New Orleans, goes far beyond that.
Country USA
Brand Blair
Manufacturer Blair
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber Illustrated
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780895876553
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	Blair
Manufacturer	Blair
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	Illustrated
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780895876553
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

Witness to Change: From Jim Crow to Political Empowerment

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