The Lusher Charter School in New Orleans has been renamed the Willow School because the man after whom it was originally named was an architect of segregated schools in Louisiana immediately after the Civil War and later after the Reconstruction Era ended in the state. Robert Mills Lusher was a former Confederate who served as Superintendent of Education for the State of Louisiana at the end of the Civil War in 1865 until 1868, when he left because he did not support integrating schools. After Reconstruction was ended, he was again superintendent from 1876 through 1879. Lusher was a supporter of public schools, but he insisted that they serve the ends of White Supremacy.
When he became state education superintendent in 1865, Lusher wrote to Gov. James Madison Wells telling him that “I do not propose, sir, to dilate on the instruction of black and colored … but I shall refer, chiefly, to that of the white educable children, between six and sixteen years of age—the spes ultimae Louisiana—the main hope of our beloved State—our only existing pledges for the perpetuation of her dignity as an enlightened commonwealth.” While Lusher advocated for free schools, he assured white Louisianians that “free” did not mean “schools equally open to blacks and whites.” In 1868, the state enacted a new constitution which included Article 135 outlawing state funding for segregated schools. Rather than accept white and Black children going to school together, he left his position.
Lusher only returned as superintendent of education when a White League supported government took power and segregation was restored.
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