Sybil Haydel Morial, matriarch of a distinguished family and civil rights crusader

by Herb Boyd

All too often patriarchs and matriarchs are mentioned only when a notable family member passes. Such is the case with Sybil Haydel Morial, though her legend is well known in the annals of New Orleans where her husband was the city’s first Black mayor. And she established an enviable reputation on her own as a civil rights crusader.

She was born Sybil Gayle Haydel in New Orleans on Nov. 26, 1932, the second of four children of Dr. Clarence Haydel and Eudora (Arnaud) Haydel. Her father was a descendant of Victor Haydel, an enslaved person and her mother was a schoolteacher. According to several accounts, she attended parochial schools, Xavier University Prep School and Xavier University before transferring to Boston University.

In her memoir, Witness to Change: From Jim Crow to Political Empowerment (2015), Sybil wrote, “I grew up in New Orleans, on Miro Street, in the Seventh Ward near the London Canal… Ours was a real New Orleans neighborhood with a mixture of rich and poor and everything in between. Two grand houses stood in the block — ours and the one next door, owned by another Negro family. Directly across the street were three single-family homes owned by two white families and another Negro family. A group of shotgun houses, one occupied by whites and two by Negroes, stood down the block. My friend Mona Lisa lived in one of them.”

She was a product of a highly respected family of Creole ancestry, her father a surgeon, and she recalled that “growing up, it was a complex task to maintain our dignity within the invisible bars of Jim Crow, but my parents were wise in the ways of the world. They set an example in the conduct of their own lives for what they wanted us to learn. Still, I was a teenager before I really understood — in an emotional way — what being a Negro meant, even in a mixed city such as New Orleans. My parents told us that things would get better. They said this every time we had to drive past a nice beach or a restaurant and not stop. They tried to reassure us, but it was hard to continue believing. I was a teenager on the verge of starting college in Boston before I took a train trip by myself, all the way from New Orleans to Boston.”

At Boston University she received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education. It was also at the college that she met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She had wanted to study at Tulane University but was told the school did not admit Blacks. She met Ernest “Dutch” Morial in 1954 and they married a year later. He had become the first Black graduate of Louisiana State University Law School. His rise in the city’s politics subverted many of her aspirations; she took care of their five children as he became, in succession, NAACP chapter leader in the city, Black assistant U.S. attorney in New Orleans, and ultimately the Mayor of New Orleans. Family may have been foremost among her duties, but it didn’t exclude her from making her own mark in the fight for civil rights. In 1961, when she was denied entry into the League of Women Voters in New Orleans because of her race, she formed the Louisiana League for Good Government. “In the beginning,” she wrote of the organization’s founding, “we met at my home and the homes of other members. Quickly, we established our purpose and selected a name. An all-female group at the time, we incorporated in 1963 with the following mandate: ‘The Louisiana League of Good Government is a nonpartisan, integrated — at the time, we had one white member — women’s organization whose purpose is to promote good government through an informed and participating citizenry.’”

In 1977, she and her husband cast their ballots in the New Orleans mayoral elections, accompanied by their daughter, Monique. He served two terms and died suddenly of a heart attack in 1989. There was a movement for Sybil to replace her husband but she deferred to her son, Marc, then a state senator, and he went on, like his father, to serve two terms.

She wrote that following her husband’s death, “I had to consider my life going forward. After classroom teaching, Xavier University afforded a second, extraordinary career. For 28 years, serving in several administrative positions, I worked with an administration, faculty, and staff, all committed to educating students not just for their professional lives, but for leadership, so they could contribute to creating a more just and humane society. Here, too, I honed my own professional skills — A House Divided emerged from Xavier — and I deepened my values under the guidance of President Norman Francis, who set high standards for the entire Xavier community. Xavier would be a place I could continue to grow.”

Just before the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Sybil retired. and cherished an opportunity to spend more time with her growing family, that included a number of grandchildren. It was also a time to reflect on her eventful life and compose a memoir.

Sybil died on September 4, 2024. She was 91.