Barricades to Black Drivers Dismantled
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NEW ORLEANS — Mayor Sidney Barthelemy ordered city workers Saturday to remove two steel barricades that block automobile access from a mostly black section of the city to a mostly white suburb.
“I can’t stand for it,” Barthelemy said after dispatching workers to remove the barricades, strips of steel railing affixed to wooden posts sunk in the ground.
The Jefferson Parish Council ordered the barricades erected Thursday and Friday after residents of the suburban area complained that people from the city were driving into their neighborhood at night and committing burglaries and assaults.
Blacks on the New Orleans side, in Orleans Parish, call the structures “the Berlin Wall.”
In December, Jefferson Sheriff Harry Lee set off widespread criticism by announcing that blacks in predominantly white neighborhoods would be routinely stopped and questioned by deputies. He rescinded the plan less than 24 hours after he announced it.
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