Oretha Castle Haley was born in Oakland, Tennessee in 1939 and moved to New Orleans with her parents in 1947 at the young age of 8. After graduating from Joseph S. Clark High School she enrolled at the Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO) where she joined other students in the fight for civil rights.
In 1959, Haley became heavily involved in activism when she joined the Consumer League’s Dryades Street Boycotts to end discrimination against the blacks in local shops in the downtown area. Not only was Haley active and adamant in her protest activities, even when being arrested on the picket line, but she also participated in the Citizens’ Committee, a coalition of black organizations represented by Lolis Elie and Revius Ortique in negotiations with these white merchants and political leaders to end segregation.
In 1960, Haley emerged as a founding leader of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), an organization that was aimed at establishing equality for all people locally and globally. She continued to take lead in her activism and civil disobedience working in New Orleans’ 1960’s civil rights movement.
Even after the peak of the modern civil rights movement, Haley continued her work by becoming involved in local politics and early childhood education.
Haley served as deputy administrator at Charity Hospital where she created better health care for the black community. During her time at Charity, she helped organize the New Orleans Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation. In 1972, she led the political campaign of Dorothy Mae Taylor who became the first black woman in the House of Representatives and overall first female legislator in the state.
In 1987, after a long battle with cancer, Oretha Castle Haley died at the young age of 48 and was buried in Providence Memorial Park.
In 2006, Dryades Street, which is located in Central City, the historic district of New Orleans, was renamed Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard in honor of Mrs. Haley as one of New Orleans’ leading civil rights workers. It was designated by Mayor Mitch Landrieu (then Lieutenant Governor) as one of four Urban Main Streets in New Orleans. It may be a small street but its history is definitely not.
Haley was just one of New Orleans’ many civil rights leaders but she was one of the most outstanding. Her sweat and tears shall never be forgotten and her legacy will live on as the people of New Orleans continue to remember her and all the effort she put into making New Orleans a better place for African-Americans and all minorities living here.
Posted By: Siebra Muhammad
Tuesday, February 18th 2014 at 9:09PM
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