Longtime Xavier President Norman Francis on Why Equal Education Is the Key to Everything
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Interview by Christina Watkins
This article was originally published with Hearst Television. Click here to see the video.
Norman C. Francis was born March 30, 1931, in Lafayette, Louisiana. He came to New Orleans in 1948. Though his parents didn’t graduate from high school, Francis credits them for teaching him how to live, respect people, always remember who you are, and how to make a living.
The Army veteran was the first Black law student at Loyola University in New Orleans. He also served as president of Xavier University of Louisiana—the nation’s only historically Black Catholic university—for 47 years.
“The best thing that could happen to me was to have had a law degree and be president of a university,” Francis said.
He became president during the height of the civil rights era in 1968, housing the Freedom Riders on their stop in New Orleans. Francis shared what it was like then compared to what he sees now.
“Unlike some of what we’re going through right now, and I say this in all honesty, people haven’t really yet dealt with racism. In part, yes, but in totality to the sense that each would respect each other, it’s not there yet,” Francis said. “We’re not going back, but we got to know how to handle that, and what we’ve seen lately, we held our own, like Martin Luther King would have done—hold your ground, wait till your time comes.”
While president at Xavier University of Louisiana, which also is referred to as XULA, Francis also worked as a civil rights lawyer, getting young Black men and women out of jail.
“There were a number of organizations that all did God’s work in getting freedom for people who didn’t have money, who were being put in jail, and shouldn’t have been put in jail,” he said.
As an educational giant, Francis awarded degrees to more Black students who applied to and then graduated from medical school than any other institution in our nation. More than Harvard, Yale, Michigan, and Florida, to name a few. Francis said he remembers all of his students throughout those years.
Francis reflected on his time as president of a historically Black college or university, and when he sees the injustices still happening, he said there’s one way to a better America, and it’s education.
“We’ve got to have people who believe that education belongs to everybody. We have to learn from when our history was. We couldn’t even be taught how to read or write during segregation. The future is education for our kids to start early. Let them know about Blacks who made history and did it from their own belief in themselves, and belief in we got to make a change,” Francis said.
In 2006, former President George W. Bush awarded Francis with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. He has received 40 honorary degrees from other universities and at least 20 major awards to recognize his leadership in education, and his dedicated service to New Orleans and our nation.
In January, the City of New Orleans renamed a street in his honor, changing Jefferson Davis Parkway to Norman C. Francis Parkway.
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This story was created as part of Lift Every Voice, in partnership with Lexus. Lift Every Voice records the wisdom and life experiences of the oldest generation of Black Americans by connecting them with a new generation of Black journalists. The oral history series is running across Hearst magazine, newspaper, and television websites around Juneteenth 2021. Go to oprahdaily.com/lifteveryvoice for the complete portfolio.
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