Chaffer Pete News Today

Former students recall integration of Acadiana schools Sign In LEIGH GUIDRY, Lafayette Daily Advertiser May 14, 2021 FacebookTwitterEmail 11 1of11Albert "Al" Hayes Jr., right, a member of the St. Landry Parish School Board, speaks with Ken Richard outside a coffee shop in Eunice, La., Monday, May 3, 2021. As a 1969 graduate of Charles Drew High School, he was in the last graduating class of the all-Black high school before schools in the area were integrated. (Scott Clause/The Dail...

‘Don’t hate; just keep your head held high’ Antoinette Chaffers’ Pete, 65, grew up in west Crowley and attended a small, all-Black Catholic school connected to her church and run by the Sisters of the Holy Ghost from San Antonio. St. Theresa Catholic Church still stands on West Third Street, but the school has long been shuttered and the sisters returned to Texas. The youngest of eight, Pete jokes that the sisters gave her mother, a devout Catholic, a discount on tuition at the school ...