Cloak of darkness - segregation in New Orleans Recreation Department - Section 1: Black South Culture

African American Review, Spring, 1993 by Brenda Dyer Quant

The New Orleans Recreation Department used to provide separate and unequal playgrounds for the city's children. Before they became integrated in 1962, there were over 100 playgrounds for whites and less than 20 for Blacks. My family did not live near any of the Black playgrounds, and we were not allowed to set foot in Bunny Friend Park, the whites-only playground on Desire Street, in walking distance from our house.

Holy Redeemer Church, our Black Catholic parish (located five white Catholic churches away from our neighborhood), was across the street from Washington Square, another whites-only playground. It was a well-kept park with lots of trees, swings, a wading pool cement paths, and benches.

Mama and I left church one Tuesday night after Novena and circumnavigated Washington Square to get to the Desire bus stop at the corner of Dauphine Street and Elysian Fields Avenue. The buses were slow at night. We knew we were in for a wait. We'd been standing at the bus stop for only a few minutes when my mother suggested I break the law. There was no one around. It was dark. The large, spreading live oaks in and around the park blocked out much of the street light. We were standing just a few feet away from the park entrance. "Go swing on the swings until the bus comes," Mama said.

I was the happiest criminal in New Orleans that night. I tested every swing looking for the best fit, and thought about the little white behinds that would sit in them the next day, behinds that would never suspect that their swings had been violated during the night. I pushed off with the stealth of a cat burglar, pointed my toes at the tree tops, and swung with the intensity of an Olympic athlete. I ignored the building fear of what would happen to Mama and me if we were caught.

She stood watch at the bus stop, occasionally glancing nonchalantly in my direction, but mostly trying to look natural, as if she were just another colored lady waiting for a bus on a dark corner.

This was my first criminal act in life. And Mama was my co-conspirator. What happens to a child whose mother suggests, sanctions, and acts as lookout for her own daughter's wanton criminal offense? I became a repeat offender. A habitual swing thief. I swung on the whites-only swings every Tuesday night for the nine weeks we attended Novena that year. I was never apprehended and I am reported to be still at large, hiding out somewhere in New Orleans.

Brenda Dyer Quant is a New Orleans native and winner of a 1992 Louisiana State Fellowship in Literature.