McDonogh Day Boycott

Delegations from black schools, meanwhile, had to wait for a separate ceremony afterward, often standing all the while in hot, muggy, or otherwise uncomfortable New Orleans weather.

[1] [2] In May 1954, Arthur Chapital, the director of the local NAACP branch in the 1950s, urged Ortique to make radio broadcasts calling for black parents to keep their children home during the McDonogh Day Ceremonies.

John McDonogh, born in Baltimore, Maryland on December 29, 1779, began his early career as a merchant selling American and European goods.

Despite an 1830 Louisiana law prohibiting it, McDonogh educated the people he owned, even sending two men to study at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania.

On October 26, 1850, John McDonogh died in his home in McDonoghville, leaving the bulk of his estate to New Orleans and Baltimore for the establishment of free schools.