Where People Went to Eat, Meet, Plan, and Strategize in New Orleans
Segregated Restaurant, 1938, Courtesy of Farm Security Administration, National Archives
During the civil rights movement Dooky Chase Restaurant in New Orleans served as an important meeting place for black activist such as the Rev. Avery Alexander, Rev. A.L. Davis (SCLC), and Dr. Henry Mitchell (NAACP). In 1959 they organized the Consumers' League of Greater New Orleans (CLGNO) to fight segregation in city eateries and hiring practices. At Dooky Chase's the CLGNO and students from Dillard, Xavier, University of Louisiana, Southern University, and Tulane organized a civil rights movement over gumbo. Leah Chase recalls, I “fed civil rights workers when they would come in . . . to the restaurant, and we made this big pot of gumbo. We cooked; they ate; they planned, then they went on.”
