Friday, Dec. 22, 1961
Change of Scene
Appointed last week to succeed retiring Judge E. Barrett Prettyman on the nine-member bench of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.: J, (for James) Skelly Wright, 50, who has served for the past twelve, event-filled years as judge of the Federal District Court for eastern Louisiana. Wright won national attention with a series of court orders requiring desegregation in Louisiana State University's professional schools, on New Orleans buses and in the city's parks. Last year Judge Wright's decision to end segregation in New Orleans public schools--on the escalator plan, one grade each year --touched off riots that shook the city (TIME, Nov. 28, 1960 et seq.). Although Wright and his family have been subjected to ostracism by some of their neighbors and abuse from white supremacists, the public school ruling has stuck--and New Orleans is now among the few established enclaves of desegregated public schools in the Deep South.
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