Oretha Castley Haley

Summary Interview of Oretha Castle Haley, Box 5, Item 24, Side 1, Kim Lacy Rogers collection, Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, https://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/islandora/object/tulane%3A83303/

This interview was between interviewer, Kim Lacy Rogers, and prominent New Orleans civil rights activist, Oretha Castle Haley. Haley was born July 22, 1939 in New Orleans, Louisiana, and died of cancer on October 10, 1987. Rogers explains on tape that she is conducting an oral history for archival documentation on race relations and legal activity in the Southern States. Haley was an active member of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Freedom Riders, where she served as their New Orleans headquarters. 

The interview takes place at Charity Hospital in 1978. Haley discusses the segregation of the hospital before the interview, and how she and others filed suit that resulted in the desegregation of patients and services at the hospital. Haley discusses getting involved in CORE in 1959. She talks of their meetings at the Dryades YMCA, which remains there today. It’s revealed that the CORE members of their chapter consisted of students from Xavier, Loyola, and Tulane. Haley, along with other CORE members, were arrested for a sit-in they had organized at McCrory’s, which had become known for not hiring African American women as cashiers but serving predominantly African American customers.