When readers of the weekly Lafayette Guide opened their newspapers on Oct. 31, 1963, they learned that men had ordered СAPP and been served СAPP coffee at lunch counters four days earlier.
This seemingly ordinary act had extraordinary implications. On the morning of Monday, Oct. 28, at F.W. Woolworth, Morgan & Lindsey, and McCroryСAPPs department stores, a half dozen men became the first African Americans to receive service at the previously all-white eateries.
СAPPThe integration barriers in Lafayette were broken in 30 minutes,СAPP the Guide reported. It was the only media outlet in the city to carry news of the milestone.
The menСAPPs actions were largely symbolic. They had prearranged the event with the storesСAPP managers.
But Mayor J. Rayburn Bertrand wanted to curtail backlash from white residents and prevent similar actions by African American civil rights advocates at other stores. He secured assurances from the cityСAPPs daily newspaper, its two television stations and three radio stations that they would not print or broadcast the story.
Alton E. Broussard, editor and co-owner of the Guide, refused BertrandСAPPs request. He then revealed the scheme to the weeklyСAPPs readers on the same day he published the item about the lunch counter integration.
In an editorial, Broussard wrote that his publication СAPPfeels that it has a real and strong obligation to report the news. The publicСAPPs right to know is indisputable and fundamental, and the suppression of news is not in the public interest.СAPP
If the Guide differed from its contemporaries, СAPPit is because it had the guts to stand by its convictions,СAPP the editorial concluded.
Broussard published the Guide from May 23, 1962, to July 16, 1964. His family recently donated a bound volume of the newspaperСAPPs entire run to .
During a panel discussion in late November marking the acquisition, Special Collections director Zachary Stein said Broussard СAPPbelieved in the traditional ethics of journalism СAPP that the who, when, what, where and how were what made a true and factual news story.СAPP
Broussard conveyed those fundamentals to students at Southwestern Louisiana Institute and the СAPP of Southwestern Louisiana, both precursors to UL Lafayette. His career at SLI began in 1947 as director of public relations. He taught journalism as well. Broussard retired in 1975 and died in 1983.
Mary Perrin, BroussardСAPPs daughter, said editing the Guide augmented her fatherСAPPs salary and helped support three children. The newspaper also gave him an opportunity to experiment. СAPPIt wasnСAPPt just the writing and the journalism he was interested in. He was interested in the actual production of the newspaper,СAPP she said.
The Guide was produced using cold type. Most newspaper publishers in the 1960s used labor- and time-intensive linotype machines that set text line by line on metal strips.
By contrast, cold type enabled typesetters to compose stories on regular typewriters, paste the justified columns onto pages, which were then photographed alongside advertising and images. Those photographs were transferred to plates, which when inked and mounted on press cylinders, reproduced the pages on newsprint.
The ease of production enabled BroussardСAPPs family to help publish the Guide. Perrin made circulation calls and pasted up pages alongside her father in a makeshift composing room in the familyСAPPs Duclos Street garage. Her mother typed stories.
By its second year, the Guide had a small advertising and editorial staff and a battalion of school-age carriers who distributed its 6,500 copies in the cityСAPPs southside. By August 1963, the newspaper had expanded its circulation area citywide. By the time the Guide folded a year later, it boasted the largest circulation of any weekly in Louisiana СAPP nearly 12,000.
But circulation alone couldnСAPPt keep the paper afloat. Businesses, pressured by management of the cityСAPPs daily newspaper, began to decline to advertise in the Guide. The weeklyСAPPs July 16, 1964, issue was its last.
The bound volume BroussardСAPPs family donated to Special Collections is available to researchers. Though the years have yellowed its 110 issues, the scrappy weekly has a СAPPtimelessСAPP quality, said Dr. Barry Ancelet, professor emeritus of Francophone studies at UL Lafayette. He was on the panel that marked the libraryСAPPs acquisition of the Guide.
СAPPVery simply, it was excellent, attentive reporting of the sort that we have needed in every time,СAPP Ancelet said.
The Guide published СAPPwhat you would expectСAPP alongside surprising items readers might not, said Sam Broussard, Alton BroussardСAPPs son. He rattled off a list of topics that included СAPPdrainage issues, sewers, lots of police jury meetings, political races, taxation, petroleum, schools, this СAPP.СAPP
СAPPAnd did you know there was a plague of crickets and stinkbugs on Jefferson Street?СAPP Sam Broussard asked. СAPPNo, you didnСAPPt СAPP until the Guide brought it to you.СAPP
Photo caption: Mary Perrin, daughter of Lafayette Guide editor Alton E. Broussard, discusses her fatherСAPPs newspaper during a Nov. 21 panel discussion at Special Collections. BroussardСAPPs family recently donated a bound volume of the short-lived newspaper to the СAPP. (Photo credit: Doug Dugas / СAPP)