Erasing the Color Line: The Racial Formation of Creoles of Color and the Public School Integration Movement in New Orleans, 1867-1880

Erasing the Color Line: The Racial Formation of Creoles of Color and the Public School Integration Movement in New Orleans, 1867-1880 Public Deposited

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Creator

Yamanaka, Mishio
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of History

Abstract

This thesis examines the public school racial integration movement of Creoles of color, a francophone interracial group in New Orleans, from 1867 to 1880. During Reconstruction, Creoles of color succeeded in desegregating about one-third of the city public schools. This thesis argues that the integration campaign of Creoles of color was an attempt to maintain their in-between identity--being neither fully whites nor fully blacks and being both Creoles and Americans--and an effort to erase the color line by improving the social status of black Americans to equal that of white Americans. Creoles of color forged desegregation by manipulating their ambiguous ethno-racial heritage and by negotiating with white radical Republicans, white New Orleanians and Anglophone blacks. Focusing on the political, legal and grass-root struggles of Creoles of color, this thesis reveals that they challenged segregation as it symbolized the emergence of biracial hierarchy in post-Civil War New Orleans.

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