The New Orleans school desegregation crisis was a 1960 crisis over desegregation in schools located in New Orleans. Desegregation was a policy that introduced black students into all-white schools, as ordered by the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954. Public schools that were segregated were ruled to be unconstitutional. There had been significant backlash from white New Orleans residents towards desegregating, and the New Orleans school board tried everything they could to postpone the mandatory desegregation from the federal government.

On November 14, 1960 two New Orleans elementary schools were desegregated. The two schools selected to desegregate were the McDonogh 19 and William Frantz Elementary schools. Both schools were located in the Lower Ninth Ward, a predominantly low-income neighborhood in New Orleans.

By the end of the day on November 14, there were few white children left at McDonogh 19 Elementary and it became apparent that there was a white boycott occurring at both schools. A black student involved in the desegregation, Ruby Bridges, became well-known. Her three black classmates Leona Tate, Tessie Prevost, and Gail Etienne also attended the previously all-white schools and all faced public humiliation, taunts, and racial slurs as they walked to school daily. A race riot broke out on November 16, 1960 in front of the Orleans Parish school board meeting. There were numerous death threats against the black children and the presence of Federal Marshals was required for Ruby Bridges for her attendance at Frantz Elementary. Between January and May 1961, Ruby Bridges was the only student at Frantz elementary, due to the white boycott of the school. It took ten more years for the New Orleans public schools to fully integrate. In September 1962, the Catholic Schools of Orleans Parish were also integrated.

Under the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court ruling, public schools for both white and African American students were required to support "separate but equal" school facilities. In New Orleans and the rest of the country, this was not the reality; many black public schools were not held to the same standards as white public schools. Suffering from overcrowded and outdated schools, the black community demanded that the Plessy ruling be upheld and enforced. Within this community was a man named Mr. Wilbert Aubert. Wilbert Aubert along with Mrs. Leontine Luke called for a meeting of the Ninth Ward Civic and Improvement League held November 6, 1951 at the Macarty School for black students. After years of protesting for equal schools and not having their requests met, the Ninth Ward Civic and Improvement League created an initiative to file a lawsuit against the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB).

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