dpFormer students and teachers returned to the Lower Ninth Ward for a reunion picnic, celebrating the school’s history and the community it helped shape.
NEW ORLEANS — Twenty-one years after Hurricane Katrina changed the Lower Ninth Ward, former students of Alfred Lawless High School gathered Sunday to celebrate the school, its history and the community it helped build.
Lawless was the only public high school across the canal in the Lower Ninth Ward, making it central to the community for generations of students.
The school was destroyed after the levees failed during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and never reopened.
For Jude Albert, a member of the Class of 1994, returning to the area brings back difficult memories.
“It’s pretty tough,” Albert said. “I remember coming home trying to show my children the school I went to and the job I worked at. All of it is gone.”
Losing the school also meant losing a place that brought the community together.
“This was the school that everyone came to unless their parents let them go across the river, but this school kept the community together,” said Dominique Charles Albert, also a member of the Class of 1994.
That sense of community was on display Sunday during an all-class reunion picnic held on the former Lawless campus. The site now serves as a government building.
Alumni from across the school’s history attended the gathering, including former students dating back to the first graduating class in 1984.
For Wanda Johnson, a member of the Class of 2001, the reunion was a reminder of the resilience of the Lower Ninth Ward.
“To come from not just the Lower Ninth Ward, especially when you look around post-Katrina. This is a reminder that there is life and life abundantly,” Johnson said.
Former teachers also attended the reunion, giving alumni an opportunity to reconnect with people who helped shape their lives.
Former English teacher Ms. Lee said the school’s legacy still shows in the people who attended.
“Let’s just say, we were one of the best kept secrets in the city,” Lee said. “But all you have to do, sir, is look around, and you will see the amazement and the wonders.”
While the building that once housed Alfred Lawless High School is gone, its alumni say the bonds created there remain.
The reunion came one day after the 21st anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, giving former students another opportunity to remember what was lost — and celebrate what survived.
