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The Griffins worked on school desegregation, voting rights in Plaquemines Parish [1]
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Date: 2025-03-24
Irene Williams Griffin and her husband, the Rev. Percy Murphy Griffin, were a dynamic civil rights duo in Plaquemines Parish. In 1954, Irene became the first Black woman to register to vote in the parish.
Like the Bible’s shepherd boy, David, the Griffins faced a seemingly unbeatable giant.
Under the rule of segregationist Parish President Leander Perez Sr., Plaquemines Parish instituted poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent Black people from registering to vote. Perez helped to organize White Citizens’ Councils, white supremacist organizations created after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregated public schools were unconstitutional.
Perez was a significant influence on segregation measures in the Louisiana State Legislature. He also hindered civil rights workers by prohibiting outsiders from using ferries – the best mode of transportation to cross rivers – to enter the parish.
Despite these obstacles, the Griffins were not deterred.
Percy started a Black voter registration drive after he returned from World War II in 1946. Joined by New Orleans civil rights attorneys Earl Amedee and Louis Berry, Percy formed the Plaquemines Parish Civil and Political Organization Inc. with 26 other Black parish residents.
“Mrs. Griffin was an ardent supporter of her husband’s efforts to take on segregationist Judge Leander Perez Sr.,” a 2012 Times-Picayune article states. Several Black Plaquemines residents registered to vote after the organization filed suits against Perez.
The Griffins also worked to desegregate public schools. They focused on integrating the all-white Woodlawn High School on the parish’s east bank.
“Because of their work, their home was bombed in 1963,” the Times-Picayune states. “Three years later, they would send two of their 11 children to integrate Belle Chasse High School.”
Born in 1927, Irene was 84 when she died in 2012. Percy died in 2004.
For more tales from New Orleans history, visit the Back in the Day archives.
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