New Orleans’ 1st Black subdivision officially historic
Associated Press
FILE - The Pontchartrain Park neighborhood is seen in a Friday, June 8, 2018 file photo. Pontchartrain Park, the first subdivision built for middle- and upper-class Black residents of New Orleans, is now on the National Register of Historic Places. (Max Becherer/The Advocate via AP, File
FILE - Carrie Mingo Douglas, a member of the Pontchartrain Park neighborhood association and chair of the association's historic district committee, walks around the historic sign of the housing development that she helps maintain in New Orleans, in a Friday, June 8, 2018 file photo. Pontchartrain Park, the first subdivision built for middle- and upper-class Black residents of New Orleans is now on the National Register of Historic Places. (Max Becherer /The Advocate via AP, File)
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The first subdivision built for middle- and upper-class Black residents of New Orleans — and one of the first in the nation — is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Pontchartrain Park opened in 1955. Although the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled a year earlier that segregated public schools were unconstitutional, segregation was still the law in Louisiana and other Southern states.
The president of the Pontchartrain Park Neighborhood Association said it’s great to have national recognition of the neighborhood’s historical significance.
Gretchen Bradford says that once the COVID-19 pandemic is over, the group will hold a grand celebration.
