Straight University

Straight University. . In 1869, the American Missionary Association (AMA) and philanthropist Seymour Straight partnered to found Straight University, a school where African Americans could aspire to the highest education available after Emancipation. Classes were first held in a Congregational church, but by 1871, a main university building was erected on the northeast corner of Esplanade Avenue and N. Derbigny Street., As Union soldiers left New Orleans in 1877, the main university building was set ablaze in an act of arson. The structure was completely demolished and the campus relocated to the corner of Canal Street and Tonti Street. In 1930, Straight merged with New Orleans University to form Dillard University, Louisiana's oldest historically black university., Reverse Side , Straight trained the first generation of African American Civil Rights activists, lawyers, clergy, educators, and school leaders. Notable alumni were Louis A. Martinet and Rodolphe Desdunes, founding members of the Citizen's Committee, a group established in 1891, to fight against Jim Crow segregation. Other important alumni include, Valena C. Jones; Fannie C. Williams; Rev. Alfred Lawless, Jr.; Rev. Henderson Dunn; and P.B.S. Pinchback, the first black Governor of Louisiana. Rev. Laforest A. Planving, a notable educator and Straight alum of 1899, was murdered while serving as Principal of the Pointe Coupee Industrial School in Oscar, Louisiana, prompting the AMA's request to swiftly convict his assassin. Alice Ruth Dunbar Nelson, an 1892 graduate of Straight became a poet, journalist, political activist, and preeminent figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Through their schools of Law, Medicine, and Theology, Straight pioneered African American access to public education, citizenship for African Americans, advocacy for civil rights, and interracial public education.