The Civil Rights History Project: Survey of Collections and Repositories

Friends of the Cabildo oral history program

Repository: New Orleans Public Library. Louisiana Division

Collection Description (CRHP): The collection includes interviews on Civil Rights Movement-related topics, including the Black Creole community, African American neighborhoods, Black political organizations, the NAACP in New Orleans, and CORE.

Collection Description (Extant): The Friends of the Cabildo, the support group for the Louisiana State Museum, has been conducting oral history interviews since 1972. In 1992 the FOC and the New Orleans Public Library agreed to a transfer of the duplicate user tapes from the Museum's Louisiana Historical Center to the Library's Louisiana Division. Numerous additions to the collection have been made since the original 1992 transfer. Typed or handwritten index cards summarizing each interview were also transferred to the Louisiana Division with the tapes.

In 1997 Dorothy Schlesinger and Dorothy Mahan, then Director of the Oral History Program, edited a new directory of the collection. Below is a transcription of the FOC's Directory, with additional information -- the interviewer's name and length of the interviews (when available), and relevant notes about the quality of the audio -- taken from the summary cards. Interviews added to the collection since the publication of the FOC's Directory have also been included in the online directory.

The masters of the FOC interviews and transcriptions of the some of the tapes remain at the Louisiana Historical Center. Transcriptions of some of the earlier interviews are also available at Tulane University's Special Collections. Permission to copy any of the interviews (for any purpose other than personal use) must be obtained in writing from the Friends of the Cabildo. (Staff members of the Louisiana Division can provide contact information upon request.)

Date(s): 1972-

Finding Aid URL: http://www.nutrias.org/guides/foc/cabildo.htm

Language: English

Interviewees: Jules Adams, William Adams, Ernest Antoine, Harry Batt Jr., Clarence Barney, John Boucree, Mrs. T. M. Logan Bruns, Alden Bynum, Leah Chase, Dorothy Sewell (Hazel) Christmas, Rev. Albert D'Orlando, Ann Dlugos, Mathilde Dreyfous, Ruth Dreyfous, Jules Edwards Jr., Lolis Elie, Rabbi Julian Feibleman, Helene Godchaux, Rosalie Grad, Veronica Hill, Frans Kasteel, Rosa Freeman Keller, Ellis Marsalis, Mary Louise Martinez Sr., Sybil Morial, Peg Murison, Harold T. Porter, Anthony Rachal, Elizabeth Rack, Louadrian Reed, Martha Robinson, Paul Valteau, Frank Wilkerson, Constance Willems, Norman Wilson, Bonnie Wisdom

Rights (CRHP): Contact the repository which holds the collection for information on rights

Subjects:

African American neighborhoods
African Americans--Civil rights--Louisiana
African Americans--Louisiana
Congress of Racial Equality
Louisiana--Politics and government
Louisiana--Race relations
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
School integration--Louisiana--New Orleans

Genres:

Interviews
Sound recordings
Transcripts