By Garry Blanson
Strangely, as I was researching U.S. Senator Russell Long, I came across an article that mentioned the term,”SEGREGATED ACADEMY.” Come to find out that after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Landmark Civil Rights Case,”Brown versus The Board of Education in 1954,” a bunch of white parents in Louisiana, and other states in the South decided to withdraw their children from public schools and start their own private schools.
As a matter of fact, “many of the Southern states actually went as far as to defund many public schools!” By the way, the Era of the Segregated Academy in the South, where only white children were allowed to attend certain private schools, and Black children couldn’t, was said to have started in 1954 and ended in 1976 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it’s decision in a “LESSER KNOWN” landmark civil rights case, case, “Ruyon versus McCrary” that declared private schools for “WHITE ONLY” as unconstitutional. Although the ruling brought an abrupt end to the SEGREGATED ACADEMY SCHOOLS, “AS THEY HAD EXISTED FOR MORE THAN 20 YEARS,” White parents and White officials at the private schools came up with new policies and higher tuition fees to dissuade Black parents from even thinking about enrolling their children into their private schools!
Well, I don’t know about everyone else, but this new information about the former “SEGREGATED ACADEMY ERA” has certainly got me thinking more and more about Governor Jeff Landry’s NEW LOUISIANA GATOR SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM that he signed into law “ON NATIONAL JUNETEENTH DAY, JUNE 19, 2024,” which allows public funds to be used to pay for private education fees, and goes into effect this year. So much for that, let’s get to this week’s Black Pioneer!
Johnnie A. Jones was born on November 30, 1919, in Laurel Hill, Louisiana. According to records, Johnnie attended elementary school in the West Feliciana Parish School System. From there, he enrolled in what is now known as Southern Lab High School. During World War ll, Johnnie enlisted in the U.S. Military, where he received an injury to his neck. Upon being honorably discharged from the military, a strange incident occurred on his way to New Orleans, Louisiana, to have surgery. During a traffic stop, for some unknown reason, Johnnie was attacked and beaten by a Caucasian Louisiana Sheriff.
A strange thing indeed, considering he had just been injured defending his country! Never-the-less, after he recovered from surgery, Johnnie enrolled in Southern University, where he went on to earn his Law Degree in 1953. By the way, it has been said that being at the right place at the right time and knowing the right people can play a big part in one’s success, which it did for Johnnie. By him being in Baton Rouge, knowing Rev. T. J. Jemison, and having just earned his law degree from Southern University, he was hired on to represent the Black people who were arrested during the Baton Rouge Bus Boycott in 1953.
Well, some of the other interesting things about Johnnie included; In 2019, becoming a member of the “National Black Centenarian Club,” all of whom were over the age of 100 ; In 2013, when he was one of the oldest Attorneys to practice Law in America, at the age of 93 ; From 1968 – 1972 when he served as the Assistant Parish Attorney for East Baton Rouge Parish ; and in 1972 when he was elected to The Louisiana State House of Representatives for East Baton Rouge Parish, just to name a few! Lastly, a year before his demise, Johnnie finally received his Purple Heart Medal, some 77 years after he was injured by shrapnel during “Operation Overlord,” the D-Day invasion of Omaha Beach in World War ll. On April 23, 2022, after years of dedicated service as an Attorney, Louisiana State Representative, and service in the U.S. Military, Johnny Anderson Jones passed away peaceably at a veteran’s home in Jackson, Louisiana, at the age of 102.
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