On the west bank of Jefferson Parish, Stanley Crosby is a household name. A beloved English teacher, he spent more than a half century educating generations of high school students.
“I’ve taught students’ mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers,” Crosby, now 88 and retired, said.
But his legacy extends far beyond lessons on Shakespeare and grammar. In the era of state-sponsored segregation, Crosby, a Black man, repeatedly risked his job to stand up for his students’ right to an equal education.
In 1965, after almost 1,500 students at the all-Black Lincoln High School in Marrero walked out of class to protest their separate and unequal education, Crosby scolded Jefferson’s all-White School Board. None of Lincoln’s classrooms had heat, and almost all of its textbooks were outdated hand-me-downs from the White schools.
“The thing is, you know better,” Crosby remembers telling board members. “It would be different if you were ignorant. But you know what you’re doing. And you’re hurting these children’s lives.”
Recent Comments