St. Augustine Catholic Church
New Orleans
St. Augustine Catholic Church has been a respite and source of inspiration and community for freed people of color, slaves, white Creole, Haitian and French immigrant worshipers since its founding in 1841. The church’s location is key, as it is situated in the historic Faubourg Tremé, known not only as the oldest African-American neighborhood in the United States, but also as a place where free blacks were permitted to acquire, purchase and own real property years before the official end of slavery.
The church, which celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2016, is also recognized by some historians as the birthplace of the Southern civil rights movement. Today, many of the city’s local icons and their descendants proudly recount their experiences for tour groups and others who come in search of in-depth connections to this community’s rich history.
Monique Brierre Aziz is a Haitian immigrant and long-time parishioner. The stories she often shares are unique in that after coming to the United States as a child, she first lived in Shreveport, Louisiana, where her father, a doctor, worked tirelessly to help integrate the schools in the 1960s.
“In Shreveport, there was a Catholic school for blacks, but we did not have the same books, no certified teachers and not the same exposure as the white schools,” Brierre Aziz said. “So in my father’s fighting for education rights, by the time we finished elementary school we could filter into the all-girls Catholic high school and receive those same resources.”
After moving to New Orleans, where she has now lived for over 30 years, Brierre Aziz learned that despite the early integration of this neighborhood and the St. Augustine spiritual community, segregation still reigned. Among her stories is one she heard through descendants about a church member prohibited from sitting in the front of the sanctuary and relegated instead to the last two pews.
“When I talk to people on tours, I incorporate all that I can about some of the people who were active in the civil rights movement in New Orleans,” she said. This includes people like Homer Plessy, the plaintiff in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case in 1896 for refusing to move from a railcar designated for whites only and A.P. Tureaud, a key legal activist working to end Jim Crow laws in Louisiana. “It’s important to tell the stories you hear from ordinary people. Sometimes people say that these things didn’t really happen, but the stories are true and affected us. I love New Orleans, I love the history, and I want to share it with people.”
Albany Civil Rights Institute and Old Mount Zion Baptist Church
Albany, Georgia
In southwest Georgia, one of the first and among the most influential battleground cities in the fight against segregation was Albany, where Martin Luther King Jr. not only honed his skills in front of capacity crowds, but also met and coordinated many activities of the movement with four major civil rights organizations: the Congress of Racial Equality, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and SNCC. These entities often met at what is now the Old Mount Zion Baptist Church, listed on the National Register of Historic Places and part of the Albany Civil Rights Institute.
In addition to visiting this state-of-the-art facility encompassing a wide array of visual, audio and digitally mastered exhibits, artifacts and memorabilia, groups can hear personal stories from leaders and activists from the civil rights era that still reside in the area. Among the most memorable retellings are those from the Freedom Singers.
Originally formed in 1962 to raise money for SNCC, the Freedom Singers had four founding members: Charles Neblett, Bernice Johnson, Cordell Hull Reagon and Rutha Harris. And like the Freedom Riders who traveled on interstate buses across the South to protest segregation, the Freedom Singers traveled extensively, driving over 50,000 miles and singing at churches, educational institutions, private homes and prominent events in 46 states.
Harris has since formed a new Freedom Singers group. On the second Saturday of every month, the group shares — in story and acapella song — the history of that turbulent time at Old Mount Zion Church.
“The music is what makes all the difference,” Harris said. “It’s a universal language; it calms the heart, calms your inner being and can calm any situation.”
To open the performance, the singers march in, picket signs in hand, circling the pews singing “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round,” one of the most well-known songs about protest and freedom. Others, such as “I Woke Up This Morning With My Mind on Freedom,” “I’m On My Way” and “The Buses Are A-Comin,’” also keep visitors spellbound. “The movement was about using music to bring people together of all colors to do what God sent us to do,” Harris said.
One story she has shared with attendees is about a particularly frightening incident she had while driving through Alabama in the 1960s.
“We were in a brown compact Buick just big enough for the four of us, and we were shot at,” she said. “And the driver was the only person who couldn’t duck. We did some singing, and we did some praying.”
The performance is an interactive experience in that the Freedom Singers also invite and encourage the multicultural, multigenerational attendees to share their personal stories about race relations to encourage cross-cultural understanding and conversation.
