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Gilbert Academy and New Orleans University: Historic Black learning institutions [1]

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Date: 2024-04-26  

Where De La Salle High School currently sits on St. Charles Avenue once stood two institutions dedicated to educating Black students: New Orleans University and Gilbert Academy.

New Orleans University was chartered in 1873 by the Methodist Church and operated by Freedman’s Aid and Southern Education Society, according to Preservation in Print. In 1889, the university built a five-story, steam-heated Gothic Revival brick building at 5138 St. Charles Ave. According to the Daily Picayune, the university offered college prep, English, Bible, music and business courses, as well as medical, pharmacy, printing and night schools.

When New Orleans University merged with Straight College to form Dillard University in 1935, Gilbert Academy moved to St. Charles Avenue. As the “first standard four-year high school for Black students,” Gilbert started as the Colored Orphans Home in 1863. It housed the Black children of Union soldiers killed during the Civil War.

In 1875, the home became La Teche Seminary, a prep school for rural Black children. The seminary became Gilbert Academy after Connecticut businessman William L. Gilbert made substantial donations in the 1880s.

“When Gilbert Academy opened its doors in New Orleans as the elite school for young Black students seeking college preparatory education,” the Historical Marker Database states, “it had come a long way from its modest beginning as a colored orphanage.”

Annual tuition was $30, room and board was $15 a month and the laundry fee was $2 per semester. According to the Times-Picayune, notable graduates include former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young, pianist Ellis Marsalis, civil rights activist Lolis Edward Elie, architect John Louis Wilson and Olympic medalist Audrey “Mickey” Patterson.

Gilbert was torn down after it was sold to the Archdiocese of New Orleans in 1949 for $312,000. The historic building was voted as the second most missed landmark in the Historic New Orleans Collection’s 2021 New Orleans Bracket Bash: Lost Landmarks Edition.

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[1] Url: https://veritenews.org/2024/04/26/bitd-gilbert-academy-new-orleans-university/

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