James H. Dillard Home

A National Historic Landmark on St. Charles Avenue marks where a son of Virginia slaveholders spent decades redirecting Northern money toward the schools Jim Crow states refused to fund. James Hardy Dillard was born in 1856 to parents who owned slaves. Appointed professor of Latin at Tulane in 1891, he was named dean of the College of Arts and Sciences three years later. As president of the New Orleans Public Library, he promoted the construction of a Carnegie library for Black citizens. He left Tulane to lead the Jeanes Fund from 1907 to 1931, and in 1910 became director of the Slater Fund, leading it for seven years — two philanthropic foundations supporting vocational training for Black students and training institutes for Black teachers. In 1928, he won the Harmon Award's gold for distinguished achievements in race relations, recognized for increasing county training schools for Black students from four to more than three hundred and raising public appropriations from a little more than three thousand dollars to a million dollars annually. When New Orleans University and Straight College merged in 1930 — two institutions where Dillard served as trustee — the new university was named in his honor. The Garden District home is a private residence; exterior viewing only. You're looking at where a white Southerner who inherited the spoils of slavery chose to spend his institutional capital.