The second battle of New Orleans

by Liva Baker

On the surface, this is a book about law and politics in New Orleans, one of America's most fascinating cities. But primarily, it's a book about courage and the lack of it during a century of sometimes violent disputes over New Orleans's schools, climaxing in the desegregation crisis of the late 1950s and early 1960s. It's about the courage of the outspoken 19th-century black Creole newspaper editor Paul Trevigne, who ignored threats on his life and even launched a suit to integrate the city's schools, foreshadowing the suits that persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to declare segregated schools unconstitutional a century later. It's about the courage of Ruby Bridges, a six-year-old African-American girl who in 1960, along with three other black first graders, every day ran the gamut of shrieking, spitting women trying to block their way to school. It's about the courage of J. Skelly Wright, who grew up "just another southern 'boy'" in New Orleans but as a federal district judge trashed s