Qualla: William Frantz Elementary School

William Frantz Elementary School: Introduction

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Uncredited DOJ photographer, restored by Adam Cuerden (a relatively minor restoration), Public domain. She thought it was Mardi Gras. Six-year-old Ruby Bridges, riding in a car flanked by four federal marshals on November 14, 1960, saw the enormous crowd outside William Frantz Elementary School—the shouting, the thrown objects, the raw fury—and her mind reached for the only explanation a child in New Orleans would know. "There was a large crowd of people outside of the school," she later recalled. "They were throwing things and shouting, and that sort of goes on in New Orleans at Mardi Gras." It was not a celebration. It was the first day of school desegregation in the Deep South, and Bridges was about to become the only Black child to walk through those Art Deco doors.

Image: Uncredited DOJ photographer, restored by Adam Cuerden (a relatively minor restoration) | Public domain

William Frantz Elementary School: A Building Before Its Reckoning

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Infrogmation of New Orleans, CC BY-SA 3.0. William Frantz Elementary School was built in 1937, designed in understated Art Deco style by the New Orleans school board's architect E.A. Christy. For more than two decades, it served as a neighborhood school for white families on North Galvez Street in the Upper Ninth Ward. No...

Image: Infrogmation of New Orleans | CC BY-SA 3.0

William Frantz Elementary School: Four Marshals and a First-Grader

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Infrogmation of New Orleans, CC BY-SA 3.0. Ruby's father was reluctant, but her mother, Lucille Bridges, believed the family had to act—not just for Ruby's education, but to "take this step forward ... for all African-American children." On that November morning, the marshals escorted Ruby up the steps of William Frantz w...

Image: Infrogmation of New Orleans | CC BY-SA 3.0

William Frantz Elementary School: Weathering the Storms

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. In 2005, William Frantz was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a site of national significance. That same year, the New Orleans Public Schools system was already considering closing the aging building when Hurricane Katrina struck, flooding the ground floor und...

Image: Jonathunder | Public domain

William Frantz Elementary School: A Classroom That Keeps Teaching

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Infrogmation of New Orleans, CC BY-SA 3.0. After its restoration, the building hosted Akili Academy, a charter school, before that institution merged with another. It then became the high school campus for Morris Jeff Community School, Louisiana's only PK-12 International Baccalaureate World School. The transformation is ...

Image: Infrogmation of New Orleans | CC BY-SA 3.0