Dissertation Proposal Defense: Terri A. Dickerson - Lambs of God: The Untold Story of Black Students Who Desegregated Catholic Schools in New Orleans

This project will explore the heretofore-untold experiences of, and roles undertaken by Kindergarten and First-grade African American students in desegregating Catholic schools in New Orleans. In so doing, these, the youngest students, were agents in pushing the institution in a different direction, away from separation and exclusion, and toward an undivided, universal Church, the very meaning of the word "catholic." This work will explain what happened after the media and protestors left, and focus on how the students navigated the space to inaugurate a new era of equality. Bringing these stories into view will transform the way young students are seen in the historical story of the civil rights movement generally and Catholic school desegregation specifically. For, there is no doubt that desegregation would not have occurred without agents operating at the national and institutional levels. However, without families willing to send children into precarious situations, and children who entered schools, risking personal safety, desegregation arguably would not have been successful, or likely would have occurred later. This research centers the desegregation actions and experiences of young students in the U.S. Catholic school transformation from segregated to integrated.