The Dew Drop Inn Hotel & Lounge, after a 54-year pause, is hosting live music once again. The legendary Central City nightclub reopened Friday (March 1) with performances that paid homage to its storied history. The Dew Drop on the LaSalle Street was the city’s leading Black music venue during rock ‘n’ roll’s formative years. […]
schools
School Board takes steps to replace the Fortier name
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The Alcée Fortier school building on Freret Street, now home to Lusher Charter School, will be renamed soon, according to NOLA Public Schools.
Alcée Fortier High School closed in 2006, but Fortier’s name remains with the building that now serves as Lusher’s secondary school campus. The OPSB has the authority to change the outward facing name on any of its buildings but cannot change the school name, which is designated by the charter management organization.
Lusher Charter School itself is named for Robert Mills Lusher, a Confederate official and fervent supporter of school segregation. A name change has long been discussed, but Lusher’s board, the Advocates for Arts Based Education, has not publicly stated whether it is considering a new name. Alcée Fortier, a late-19th and early-20th century writer, language professor and Tulane University administrator, was also known as a white supremacist. He praised the work of Robert Lusher and viewed public support for the education of White children as a means of fortifying White dominance, according to the NOLA-PS Renaming Committee.
Fortier was among the White League fighters in the 1874 Battle of Liberty Place, an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the state government because of its commitment to racial equality.