Page 22 - BCALA Winter 2018

22 | BCALA NEWS | Volume 45, Issue 1 territories in the western region
of the United States. This refusal to allow the expansion of slavery led wealthy southern planters to manipulate state governments to secede from the Union, causing the American Civil War. In 1865, the Confederate States of America surrendered and in that same year the United States government passed the Thirteenth Amendment to officially abolish slavery and involuntary servitude.
By 1870, five years after the end
of slavery, Baton Rouge had a population of 17,816 residents, including 9,264 African Americans. By this time the African American population was 52% of Baton Rouge; consequently, this was due largely to the decline of its white population who chose to abandon the city when the Confederate States of America lost the war. Whites began returning to Baton Rouge in 1909 when Standard Oil (now Exxon) chose to build an oil refinery in Baton Rouge; by 1930 the white population had once again become the majority (Carleton 1996).
In 2000, the City of Baton Rouge was the parish seat and the dominant center of business, culture, education, and finance. Baton Rouge was also the key industrial city in the area and the center of an immense chemical and petroleum complex on the Mississippi River. East Baton Rouge Parish was comprised of
472.1 square miles (350,009 acres) along the Mississippi River, in the southeast part of the state. The parish included three major cities: Baton Rouge, Baker, and Zachary. In 2006, Central became the newest city in East Baton Rouge Parish and the 12th largest city in the state of Louisiana.
Baton Rouge has transformed from an Indian village to a prosperous metropolis. It has the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport (Ryan Field) which serves three major airlines; rail service is provided by five railroads; and the expanding Port of Greater Baton Rouge ranks seventh among major ports of the nation and second in Louisiana.
In 2000, East Baton Rouge Parish school system consisted of 101 public and 49 private schools. Baton Rouge supported 35 libraries. Thirteen of these were parish libraries. Higher education was provided by a community college and two four-year public land- grant universities: Baton Rouge Community College (BRCC), an open admissions, two-year post- secondary public community college; Southern University (SU), recognized as the only Historically Black College and University System in America; and Louisiana State University (LSU), a traditional leader among the nation’s institutions.
2000 Census Population east Baton Rouge Parish
ToTAL NumBeR of PeRsoNs
412,852
WhITe
231,886
BLACK
165,526
oTheRs
15,440
In 2000, African Americans were 40.1% of East Baton Rouge Parish’s total population.
The history of Baton Rouge
Public Library service began on Saturday, April 8, 1899, when 22 white women of Baton Rouge were granted a charter by the National Office of the United Daughters
of the Confederacy (UDC); thus,
the Joanna Waddill Chapter
of the United Daughters of the Confederacy was established. The UDC is an association of women who honor those who fought and died to save and preserve the tradition of white leverage and white privilege. The women in the UDC assert descendancy of those whom they honor. Upon applying for the charter these women announced that their organization would be “educational in purpose and chose as its first project
the organization of a library for
the city.” Pickney Smith of New Orleans, daughter of a Confederate general, laid the original foundation stone when she contributed $10 for the public library services in East Baton Rouge, during her journey
to Baton Rouge, for the purpose
of assisting the Joanna Waddill Chapter.