Black Louisiana Veterans Fight to Keep Building
The Site Has Honored Their Sacrifices for More Than Six Decades
When members of the so-called Greatest Generation returned home from World War II and the Korean War, most were accepted with open arms.
But not everyone.
“The Black veterans had no place of their own,” former Louisiana state Rep. Terry Landry said. “The veteran buildings were for the white veterans.”
Excluded from white veterans halls in New Iberia, Louisiana, a group of Black veterans lobbied the parish government in 1957 to build a structure on land they had purchased and donated to the parish. They made the donation under a 1958 contract in which the parish agreed to construct the building and give control of it to a veterans board.
Fast-forward 63 years, and Black veterans are fighting to keep control of the building where their American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts have long operated.
After fighting for years to get a capital outlay project approved and completed to renovate the Robert B. Green Memorial Building – named for the first Black New Iberian killed in World War I – the Black veterans who meet there were recently told to hand over the keys.
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Source: The Southern Poverty Law Center