The Desire Housing Project and the Desire Standoff, 1970

Construction of the Desire Neighborhood began in 1949 under the terms of the Housing Act of 1949. The projects were completed in 1956 and led to a concentration of African American residents in this part of the Upper Ninth Ward. Desire was isolated from other communities because it was blocked off by several canals and surrounded by railroad tracks on all four sides. Desire was also a thoroughly segregated neighborhood. The housing project was comprised of 262 two-story buildings totaling 1,860 apartments.

By the 1960s, Desire had become heavily overpopulated and housing 13,000 people on less than 100 acres. The Desire Neighborhood featured substandard housing on land that was subject to flooding and also had the highest population density in New Orleans The housing units began to fall into disrepair, and the two elementary schools in the neighborhood were underfunded. Eventually, funding from President Johnson’s War on Poverty brought some much-needed assistance. Federal funds helped bring a new community center, pool, daycare, and a health clinic to the neighborhood. In September 1965 when Hurricane Betsy hit New Orleans, the bottom floors of the Desire Apartments flooded. The Housing Authority of New Orleans invested few resources to repair the housing projects and deferred maintenance led to deteriorating conditions.

In 1970 The Black Panther offshoot known as the New Orleans Committee to Combat Fascism (NCCF) moved into the Desire Neighborhood and began implementing programs to help the residents. The NCCF brought political education classes, breakfast programs, and sickle cell screening centers. Louisiana Governor John J. McKeithen saw the Black Panther organization as a threat to his authority and ordered their eviction from the Desire Neighborhood. When the NCCF was served the eviction notice, they believed that due to the date of the notice that they were allowed to remain at the residence. New Orleans law enforcement personnel were ordered to remove the members from their home, and on November 19, 1970 at 8:30 a.m., 100 New Orleans police officers, state troopers, and Orleans Parish Sheriffs deputies arrived in buses, armored vehicles, and cruisers. They were armed with high powered assault rifles, shot guns, and side arms and opened fire. Within a twenty-minute period, law enforcement had fired 30,000 rounds of ammunition into the housing project where members of the NCCF lived. This show of force produced no fatalities, but 12 men, women, and children inside the NCCF Black Panther headquarters were injured along with two officers. Once the one-sided shootout ended, around 14-15 NCCF Panthers surrendered to police.

The violent actions resulted in a loss of trust by community members for the law enforcement officials of New Orleans. Thousands of Desire’s residents blocked the police from removing the NCCF from the facility because they wholeheartedly believed in what the Black Panthers and the NCCF were doing. From the perspective of many residents, activists such as the Black Panthers were the only help and hope that Desire had. According to some accounts, the NCCF Panthers who surrendered went on trial that following year and were all acquitted.

In 1971 the Housing Authority of New Orleans planned to modernize the complexes of Desire but it was deemed too costly. Instead, some deferred repairs were made in 1975, but that decade and the 1980s saw those families who could afford to secure housing elsewhere leave the Desire neighborhood. The high crime rate and increased building deterioration contributed to this migration. Eventually the Desire Housing Projects were demolished in stages. Three separate demolitions took place in 1996, 1998, and 2001. The HOPE VI Grant was used to create new mixed income housing on the site. However, Hurricane Katrina destroyed 318 of the rental units that were being constructed at the time, and 107 that had been completed. The current state of the neighborhood has been shaped by both failed housing projects and the discussion of new plans based on the hope that lower density public housing might better support the creation of a sustainable community.

Paper Monuments, Trent Smith, narrative, and Langston Allston, artwork, “Desire Standoff,” New Orleans Historical, accessed July 29, 2020, https://neworleanshistorical.org/items/show/1428.

Matsumaru, Michael. DESIRE HOUSING PROJECT, NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA (1956-2001), Black Past. September 30th 2010. Accessed July 29th 2020. https://www.Blackpast.org/african-american-history/desire-housing-project-new-orleans-louisiana-1956-2001/.

Chandler, D. L.. Little Known Black History Fact: The Desire Projects, Black American Web. Accessed July 29th 2020. https://Blackamericaweb.com/2016/09/14/little-known-Black-history-fact-the-desire-projects/.

Arend, Orissa. Black vs. Blue, My New Orleans. October 1st 2015. Accessed July 29th 2020. https://www.myneworleans.com/Black-vs-blue/.