The Hicks Foundation Collection at the Louisiana Digital Library
Explore our rich collection of primary source materials from the Bogalusa Civil Rights Movement and early Bogalusa history on the Louisiana Digital Library (LDL). The collection features rare photos, diaries and memoirs from civil rights workers, attorneys and journalists active in Bogalusa in the 1960s; FBI files on the Deacons for Defense and Justice; articles from the Bogalusa Daily News; legal records from groundbreaking Bogalusa civil rights cases; and oral histories with CORE Field Secretary Ronnie Moore; Deacons for Defense Henry Austan, Royan Burris and Reese Perkins, and others. The LDL is a comprehensive online resource dedicated to preserving history through an archive of more than 400,000 digital items from Louisiana archives, libraries, and museums.
This collection was created in partnership with the Tangipahoa African American Heritage Museum and Veterans Archives and made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Grant #MH-00-18-0036-18. The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this archive do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Some highlights from the collection
Video Interviews: Excerpts
Audio Interviews: Excerpts
Documents: Excerpts
In the 1930s, a 14-year-old boy from Bogalusa was kidnapped and held in slavery by a white farmer in Tylertown, Mississippi. His name was Jimmie Reed Washington. His horrific ordeal was never reported in the press. The only written accounts are by Irma Lee Callender, the daughter of the man who helped organize his rescue. Click here to read all 3 accounts on LDL.
Photos
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Bogalusa Freedom School, 1965
Reese Perkins teaches a small class of teenagers, clustered around him on metal folding chairs, at the Bogalusa Freedom School in 1965
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Mike Jones and Candy Nelson
Deacon for Defense Candy Nelson and CORE worker Mike Jones pose in front of Hicks House, holding shotguns
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Rally at Ebenezer Baptist Church
James Farmer speaks at pulpit during 1965 civil rights rally at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Bogalusa.
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Matt Herron contact sheet
Black and white contact sheet with Matt Herron's photos of church rally and protest march in 1965 Bogalusa.
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Fletcher Anderson, Dr. Stanley Rapoport and Robert Hicks
Fletcher Anderson, Dr. Stanley Rapoport and Robert Hicks smiling with cans of beer in small Bogalusa bar.
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K-9 Unit
A teenaged boy turns back to look at the German Shepherd in the back of a sheriff's K-9 unit car.
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Bertran Wyre
Bertran Wyre sits with a tall stick in his hand and a towel around his neck during march to Franklinton
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Resting by the side of the road
Marchers, journalists and Louisiana state troopers rest by the side of the road during Bogalusa to Baton Rouge March
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