By Garry Blanson
A founding member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Candidly, I would like to state for the record that I believe the efforts of the Neville Charter Association to make Neville High School a charter school are nothing more than a blatant and covert attempt to significantly lower the total number of Black students at Neville. Since the current student population at Neville is approximately 61% Black, many white parents are not enrolling their children at the school, even though they live within the Neville school zone.
I believe this matter dates back to the 1965 Andrews vs. the City of Monroe discrimination lawsuit, which paved the way for the first Black students to attend Neville High School. After the court’s ruling, many white parents refused to enroll their children at Neville and instead began sending them to segregated academies—now known as private schools. Today, Neville’s white student population is approximately 36%, which supports my belief about the Neville Charter Association’s intentions to reduce the Black student population by converting Neville into a charter school.
Now that I have said what I said, on to this week’s Black pioneer: Dr. Cuthbert Ormond Simpkins.
Cuthbert was born on January 13, 1925, in Mansfield, Louisiana. While little is known about his early childhood education, we do know he studied at Wiley College and later graduated from Tennessee State University with a degree in dentistry. He then earned his doctor of dental surgery degree from Meharry Medical College School of Dentistry in Nashville, Tennessee.
During World War II, he served in the United States Air Force. After returning home, he established his dental clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana. Living and working there, he noticed the excessive racism that plagued the city. Not being one to sit idly by, he joined the fight for civil rights for Black citizens in Shreveport.
At a local civil rights meeting, he learned that Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was considering forming a group to confront racism in the South. Through a mutual connection, Cuthbert met with Dr. King to learn more. On January 10, 1957, Cuthbert, Dr. King, and several others founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.
A few additional facts about Cuthbert include:
- His home was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1960s;
- He moved to New York after the bombing and lived there for 26 years;
- He returned to Shreveport in the early 1990s and won a seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives, representing District 4 from 1992 to 1996;
- Before his passing, he and his wife donated land for the construction of a community clinic to serve Black residents in Shreveport.
People in the South still speak about Cuthbert Ormond Simpkins and his contributions to the civil rights movement in Shreveport. It was a sad day on December 4, 2019, when the community learned that their champion for civil rights, Dr. Cuthbert Ormond Simpkins, had transitioned from earth to glory.
Lastly, in 2020, officials in Mansfield, Louisiana, honored him by officially renaming their post office in his memory.
