Sybil Haydel Morial matriarch to New Orleans and the steel in the spine of the Civil Rights Movement

“Though not tall in stature, Sybil Haydel Morial was a tower of grace, kindness, dignity and strength who inspired generations of servant leaders. For the past three decades, she was the matriarch of New Orleans politics … Sybil was just as tenacious and just as fearless, but in a quiet yet iron-willed way – the epitome of a Steel Magnolia.”– Clancy DuBos(TriceEdneyWire.com) – New Orleans has lost its matriarch.America has lost one of the last soldiers in that battle of the 1950s and 1960s that opened doors so we could walk through them.My family has lost its mother, grandmother and grandmother, Sybil Haydel Morial. But our grief is tempered by our gratitude, and the knowledge that her wisdom, passions, tenacity and love will live on for generations.My father, Ernest “Dutch” Morial, was a trailblazer: the first Black graduate of Louisiana State University School of Law, the first in Louisiana to be elected or appointed to his many public offices, including mayor of New Orleans, and a major force in the Civil Rights Movement.Related Stories But he’d have been nothing without Sybil.One of the enduring memories from my early childhood was a serious car accident in one of the most stringently...