Last week, St. Charles Parish Public Schools officially dedicated a newly constructed memorial honoring the 1965 desegregation of the school system and recognizing the legacy of the 43 students who first volunteered to attend schools that previously only enrolled white students.
The school district commissioned artist and sculptor Derrick Monk to create the memorial, which is located at the St. Charles Parish Public Schools’ central office in Luling.
In 2022, the school system debuted the documentary Trailblazers, which highlighted the experiences of African-American students who volunteered to attend previously all-white schools in St. Charles Parish during desegregation in 1965.
Those students volunteered to be the first to integrate in the midst of the civil rights movement.
Ulysses Frontha, a longtime Destrehan High School teacher and one of the 43 original trailblazers as a student, approached School Board Member Ellis Alexander several years ago with the idea of recognizing the first African-American students who volunteered to attend previously all-white schools in St. Charles Parish.
“It started as an idea, and now we have a monument,” said Frontha at last week’s dedication ceremony. “Kids that come along after us are going to know that something happened in St. Charles Parish that was phenomenal. It wasn’t just the idea of us leaving Carver and Bethune and going to Destrehan and Hahnville.”
Educating local youth about that time in history was the inspiration.
“I was talking with Glenda LeBoyd one day, and one of the things that came up in conversation was that a lot of the kids think that everything’s just always been exactly how it is,” Frontha said.
Alexander requested a school system committee to be formed to develop plans for a celebration, but the celebration was delayed by several years due to COVID-19 and Hurricane Ida. The committee determined a video was needed to tell the stories of these students – a documentary which current and future students and the general public would be able to view and learn from regarding the school system’s past and how it has led the system to where it is today.
The documentary, produced by Mason Dauphin, was nominated for a regional Emmy by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
In 1965, St. Charles Parish Public Schools became one of the first five school systems in Louisiana to voluntarily begin desegregation through the Freedom of Choice Plan. This plan allowed African-American students to transfer to previously all-white schools within the parish.
They inspired others to follow in their footsteps. Approximately 43 students throughout the parish transferred schools in the middle of the 1965-1966 school year, and that number more than doubled to 112 students in the following school year.
“Part of the history of St. Charles Public Schools needed to be remembered,” said Dr. Ken Oertling, Superintendent of St. Charles Parish Public Schools. “People’s stories needed to be heard … the challenges they faced are part of a legacy that extended far beyond them … in 1965, those 43 young people had the courage to walk through the doors and not always feel they belonged. And yet they kept walking through those doors because they absolutely did belong … and because they walked through those doors, the generations who followed would never have to be first again.”
Monk worked with student artists from across the district in workshops, and incorporated their vision and creativity into the memorial project. Several of the student artists were in attendance and were recognized at the dedication ceremony.
“This project connects our past with our present and our future,” Oertling said.
