Parishes take different views of campaign signs
November 26, 2014
$6.8 million assisted living coming Thib.
November 26, 2014
As a returning visitor, the Rev. Charles Brown looks on as children, both white and black, spend their formative years at Southdown Elementary School in Houma.
During class, they learn together.
During gym, they exercise together.
And during recess, they play together.
It’s a far cry from when Brown donned these same halls more than 40 years ago when Southdown was not only a high school, but the first and only all-black high school in Terrebonne Parish before integration.
“Southdown School was a dream that came true by our ancestors,” Brown said, a 1969 graduate. “They wanted to see us get at least a high school education and be able to compete and go places and go to universities like Southern University and Grambling and reach for the stars. It gave so many of us an opportunity to excel in life.”
Before Southdown opened in 1953, Brown said educational opportunities for Terrebonne Parish blacks ended by the time they reached high school age because there was not a high school for blacks in the parish – relegating many to have no other choice but to go work in the cane field.
“Unless you had a relative living in New Orleans or somewhere else where there was a high school and you could go get a higher education, that was it,” Brown explained.
Despite the inconvenience of black students being bussed to Southdown from all corners of Terrebonne Parish, Brown appreciates the opportunity he had that many of his relatives didn’t to earn a high school diploma – an invaluable asset for a lifetime. He went on to attend Nicholls after serving in Vietnam and has imparted his thoughts on the importance of an education to his son who is an attorney and his daughter, a psychiatrist.
“I ended up encouraging my kids and helping them from what I learned from my mother to get a higher education so they can compete for the best, top jobs in the country,” Brown said.
Brown’s mother was a member of Southdown’s first graduating class, instilling a very specific goal in his mind from a very early age.
“I grew up looking forward to one day attending Southdown School,” he said. “Southdown was the goal for all of us from elementary. We wanted to get to Southdown where we could get a higher education.”
Due to all of the importance Southdown has to the lives it has touched, Brown pitched an idea to school board member Gregory Harding, which passed at last Tuesday’s school board meeting with a unanimous second.
The school board authorized the administration to complete an application for the Louisiana Historical Marker Program, which authorizes Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development to erect bronze historical markers denoting and describing locations and occasions of historical interest.
Southdown was the first school to come to mind as being worthy of this honor.
“This is to recognize that [Southdown] was really one of the only buildings in this area that’s still standing which was an African American high school, and school period. Most of those schools have been abandoned and torn down,” Harding said. “I could name a ton of people that went to Southdown and now are professionals. You look at a lot of the older teachers in Terrebonne Parish, a lot of them went to Southdown, and they had to go to either Baton Rouge or New Orleans in order to go to college because you weren’t allowed to go to the white colleges. So I think the significant part is it recognizes what happened because a lot of the younger generation doesn’t know the historical significance of Southdown. It’s very historical.”
Terrebonne Parish School District Superintendent Philip Martin said the process costs the school district about $200. He said he expects the approval process to be merely a formality and didn’t know how long it would take to get the sign erected.
After receiving approval, the Terrebonne School Board will have the ability pursue the placement of historical signs in other places, however the superintendant is among many who are happy the first one will go up at Southdown.
“Most of us can’t even fathom a school that says, ‘If you’re this color, you can only go there.’ That’s almost unimaginable to most people, so, the historical significance, it’s important to remember how far we’ve come if nothing else,” Martin said.
As for Brown, one of many whose face lights up merely when the word Southdown is mentioned, the school will always have a special place in his heart.
“It’s unbelievable what we had to go through to get there,” Brown said. “It means so much to this community, Southdown School. I just can’t tell you how much it means to this parish. So much great history over there and great people that have attended the school and done great things in this country.”
Southdown School graduate Charles Brown stands near the school’s stone sign on campus.
