Witness to Change

“Teacher, civil rights leader, former first lady of New Orleans, Sybil Morial has given us in Witness to Change an elegantly written, deeply moving memoir of one of America’s most beloved political families. Reading it is a history lesson in the revolutionary changes that a single generation of brave, publicly minded servants delivered for the uplift of all. It is, in short, a book about heroes, written by one.” ―Henry Louis Gates.

"A moving memoir recounts decades of profound change….In calm, measured prose, Morial offers a singular perspective on the frustrating road to social justice." ―Kirkus Reviews.

“… a poignant story about family, race, dignity, and love.” ―Walter Isaacson.

In 1950s New Orleans, a young woman steps into a white tulle gown and glides through her parents' home into the front garden. Her father, a respected surgeon, drives her downtown, where she will make her debut into black society.In 1950s New Orleans, a young woman steps into a white tulle gown and glides through her parents' home into the front garden. Her father, a respected surgeon, drives her downtown, where she will make her debut into black society.
Though mesmerized by the ritual, Sybil Haydel, seventeen, cannot help noting the irony in a world where she daily faces the barriers of Jim Crow.
Thirteen years later, Sybil lies sleepless next to her husband, Dutch Morial. Medgar Evers, NAACP field secretary, has been murdered in Mississippi. Dutch, the organization's New Orleans president, has just received another death threat. In whispers, he and Sybil discuss how to protect their three children.
The Morials become legal, then political, activists. Testing Brown v. Board of Education, Sybil attempts to enroll at Tulane and Loyola. She and Dutch challenge a statute restricting political activities of public-school teachers. Barred from the League of Women Voters, Sybil forms an organization to help register African Americans held back from voting. After serving as judge and Louisiana legislator, Dutch is elected New Orleans' first black mayor.
In Witness to Change, Sybil Morial offers a rare glimpse of black professionals in an earlier New Orleans where the races, though socially isolated, lived side by side and where African American culture forged the city's--and America's--identity. She traces her own life: early friendships with Andrew Young and later, in college, with Martin Luther King; her trips to Africa and the search for her African ancestry; the joys and tribulations of raising five accomplished children; her visits to the White House; and her losses in Katrina.
Her memoirs capture the eventful life of a remarkable woman and the trials and triumphs of one of New Orleans' first families.