Oretha Castle Haley (July 22, 1939 – October 10, 1987) was an American civil rights activist in New Orleans where she challenged the segregation of facilities and promoted voter registration.
[2] The 1954 US Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, undermined the legal foundation of separate-but-equal racial segregation.
The 1955 murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi, and the subsequent miscarriage of justice drew national attention to the brutal and unfair treatment of African Americans in the South.
The boycott lasted almost a year and its success launched the career of Martin Luther King and demonstrated the power of non-violent political action.
[3] The first protest marches Oretha Castle participated in were sponsored by the Consumers League of Greater New Orleans (CLGNO).
When Castle and several fellow protesters sought support to stage sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, both the Consumers League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) took no interest.
Castle and her cohorts chose to ally their local group with CORE, and developed their power base in New Orleans.
The NAACP, SLC, CORE and SNCC cooperated in many endeavors, and each are credited with playing a major role in the success of the Civil Rights Movement.
On September 17, 1960, Castle and three of her fellow student-protesters were arrested for sitting in at the counter of McCrory's, a Canal Street five-and-dime store in New Orleans.
[5] There were no laws particularly allowing racial segregation in businesses in the town, however public announcements explaining a zero tolerance on sit-in demonstrations by the Mayor and Superintendent of the police had been made.
Trained and committed volunteers boarded Greyhound and Trailways buses in Washington DC and other northern cities, and headed south.
[9][10] With help from Oretha's mother Virgie and sister Doris, their home housed and fed hundreds of Freedom Riders coming and going throughout the summer.
When two Freedom Riders were beaten in New Orleans in early August, CORE staged a demonstration at Police Headquarters.
Toward the end of 1961 Rudy Lombard departed, and Oretha Castle was appointed president of the local chapter of CORE.
In the spring of 1964, Castle relinquished her presidency and moved upstate to Ouchita Parish to act as field secretary.
For more than a year, Castle applied the protest techniques she had helped to develop in Monroe, Jonesboro and Bogalusa, Louisiana.
Bayard Rustin and James Farmer pioneered the use of non-violent civil disobedience in the United States inspired by Gandhi and other writers.
[13] In 1989, the first eight blocks of Dryades Street in Central City, New Orleans, was renamed Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard.
[6] Eventually Dryades Street became a focal point for the civil rights movement when Castle Haley and her contemporaries boycotted during the 1960s.
[14] In 2015, an exhibit called 'Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard: Past, Present and Future' opened, aiming to explore the "rich history and gentrification" of the area.