Exchange Place: How A Small Struggling School Transformed Civil Rights in New Orleans and the Nation

Exchange Place is the story of a school whose mission was to train mostly African American women the skills they needed to integrate the secretarial offices of the Deep South between 1965 and ‘72. Those offices were not just segregated, for the most part they were completely off limits to women of color, and many were fighting to insure the workplace would stay that way for years or decades to come. Over the course of the school’s history, it was shut down multiple times and constantly under duress from forces conspiring to defeat it. But, it survived to became one of the most successful programs of its kind in the War On Poverty, lauded on the front pages of national newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and the subject of an Emmy Award winning documentary in 1968 entitled, appropriately, "The School That Would Not Die". The first season of the podcast tells the inspirational biographies of four of the school’s graduates who changed the moral skyline of their city -- how they did it -- and how the school’s teachers and supporters struggled to overcome the massive forces arrayed against them.

All Episodes

Exchange Place: How A Small Struggling School Transformed Civil Rights in New Orleans and the Nation

Ep. 6 Ms. Linda Phoenix Teamer: Overcoming Gravity

June 02, 2023 • The 431 Exchange; Mya Carter (Host), Jeff Geoffray (Narrator); Linda Phoenix Teamer (Guest); Kevin Gullage (Music) • Season 1 • Episode 6

Episode 6. Ms. Linda Phoenix: Overcoming Gravity. Linda Phoenix Teamer was 19 years old in 1970, the year after Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. One of Teamer’s wistful teenage dreams was to become NASA’s first African American female astronaut, but first she had to come to grips with the mysterious forces of social gravity. Although she didn't go to space, she did however break barriers by landing a highly coveted position with the President of Shell Oil and eventually went on to become one of the first African American flight attendants at Delta Airlines.

This is a presentation of The 431 Exchange. We are a non-profit scholarship fund dedicated to adult students seeking to transform their lives through continuing education. We invite you to learn more about us by going to our website www.431exchange.com where you can hear more inspiring stories by signing up for our newsletter. Thanks!