Voting in Jefferson Parish in 1947 didn't come easy

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The Rev. Robert Lee Jr. at his home in Clayton.
Photo by Brianna Piche


IN his younger days, Robert Lee Jr. sat at the front of the train but the back of the bus. He sat upstairs at movies and downstairs on boats. And none of it was up to him.

Lee, now 98, has seen two Americas: one in which the color of his skin made him inferior, and one in which a man with his skin color can become leader of the free world. He never thought he would live to see the latter, but he can pinpoint the day things began to change.

It was August 10, 1946.

That was the Saturday when Lee and 13 other black men, encouraged by the New Orleans chapter of the NAACP, walked into the Jefferson Parish registrar of voters office and entered their names and voices into the democratic process. They were among the first Louisianians of their race to do so since Reconstruction . . .

Lee saw a change he could never have dreamed in 2008 with the election of Barack Obama as president. The idea of a black man leading the country seemed so farfetched that Lee didn't think it could happen -- until the night Obama was elected . . .


read more: http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/03/retired_minister_recalls_two_a.html


Lee has kept the Jefferson Parish voter registration certificate he obtained in 1947. He and 11 others were the first black people to register in that parish since Reconstruction.

[cbayer]

1. It's still hard to be black in Jefferson Parish.

It contains the district that elected David Duke to the state legislature as recently as 1990.

It is also the place where people from the Superdome and Convention Center were "dumped" during the Katrina disaster.

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2. great points, cbayer

[cbayer]

3. I was at the interchange in Metairie when they started bringing people out of the city.

It was a sight I will never, ever forget.

Or get over.

Then there was the Mississippi River bridge, where armed residents from Jefferson Parish were keeping New Orleanians from crossing. Just about the most shameful event of the entire nightmare.

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4. the armed residents from Jefferson Parish keeping New Orleanians from crossing

. . . definitely 'shameful.'

'never, ever forget'

[Number23]

6. Wow. Amazing points. Thanks for making them.

[Number23]

5. This kind of thing needs to be sent to every non-voting brother and sister in the country

It infuriates me that so many black people refuse to engage in this most critical of basic rights. And one that so many had to literally die for.

[NOLALady]

7. My Father tried

to register in NOLA several times after he came home from the war. He was rejected for foolish reasons, such as not knowing certain parts of the Constitution. He in turn asked the clerk if he knew those parts of the Constitution. He pointed out to them that if he could put his life on the line in a war, he should be able to vote even if he couldn't recite the Constitution.

Eventually, he was allowed to register. He believes they were simply tired of seeing him as he made the trip to the Court House regularly until he was registered.

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8. great story, NOLALady

Your Dad wore them down with his persistence. That's a good lesson. It's a sad, but poignant recollection of his that you carry with you. One of the pieces in our nation's puzzle. Thanks for bringing it here and sharing it.