Earlier this week schools across the state opened their doors for the first day of the new year. And at Louisiana State University, students will head to campus in just 2 weeks. 

But it wasn’t always that LSU was open to everyone. Back in 1929, the first class of women began living on the university’s new campus. Roughly 30 years later, Black students began living in the dorms as well.

Today we are headed back to the archives to hear first-person accounts from those who integrated LSU. We’ll hear from a home economics major, a law student, an Opera star, and the first Black woman to live on campus. 

These first-person testimonies were recorded and preserved by LSU’s T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History. This story originally aired in 2010 as an episode of LSU’s What Endures podcast, hosted by the center’s director, Jennifer Abraham Kramer. 

Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Kezia Setyawan. Our managing producer is Alana Schreiber and our digital editor is Katelyn Umholtz. Our engineers are Garrett Pittman and Aubry Procell.

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at 12:00 and 7:30 pm. It’s available on Spotify, Google Play, and wherever you get your podcasts. 

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