Claiborne Avenue has the distinction of being the longest street in New Orleans and one of its busiest. Forming a part of U.S. Highway 90 for part of its Uptown stretch, the street extends over nine miles from the Jefferson Parish line to the St. Bernard Parish line. The thousands who travel this thoroughfare each day may have likely observed the impressive brick school building and its campus, which occupies the entire square between Second and Third streets. Few, however, might know its name or something about its namesake, Mr. Edgar Peterson Harney, a lifelong educator with deep connections to Mobile and New Orleans.

Edgar P. Harney School (closed in 2018 due to charter school debacle)

Edgar Peterson Harney was born in Mobile on 12 November 1902 to Julian Toxey Harney (son of Edgar Harney and Louise Pratt) and Henrietta Hawkins (daughter of Hamilton Hawkins and Henrietta Carroll). He was one of two sons born to his mother and father, who were married on 17 July 1901 at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral by Father John W. Shaw. His father, who was generally called Toxey, began as a barber like his father, but spent most of his career as a Pullman Porter.

Edgar Harney, the grandfather and namesake of this subject, was born in New Orleans on 15 May 1852 to Edward Harney and Marietta Williams. Edward Harney (1828-1889), a free man of color and barber who began working on steamboats, had only been manumitted from slavery a year earlier on 7 June 1851. In about 1871, the family moved to Mobile, where Edward and his son, Edgar, took charge of the “shaving parlor” (barber shop) in the historic Battle House Hotel, which Edgar continued to run for thirty-five years. In November 1904, Edgar Harney partnered with Clarence W. Allen to open the undertaking business, Allen & Harney, which survives to the present as the Johnson-Allen Mortuary.

Manumission of Edward Harney (1828-1889), great-grandfather of Edgar P. Harney

The marriage of Julian Toxey Harney and Henrietta Hawkins was short-lived, and Edgar P. Harney lived in Mobile with his namesake-grandfather until he was about eight years old, when he moved to New Orleans, and lived with his father and stepmother, Mary Covington Harney, at 1657 Rousselin Drive. He entered the third grade at the old Miro School (later Valena C. Jones) and remained there through the eighth grade. At the Miro School, he came under the influence of iconic educator, Miss Fannie C. Williams, who early on recognized that he was “endowed with an excellent mind and showed remarkable ability to learn.”

He showed an early interest in dramatics and was a member of the Miro School’s Knights of the Round Table, a character-building organization for boys. He was an avid sportsman and played baseball, basketball, and volleyball. He continued his outstanding athletic career at Straight College on Canal Street, where he completed high school and college, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1925. During his college years he was a member of the famed “Crimson Tide,” the Straight College football team.

After the completion of his first two years of college work, his lifelong teaching career with the Orleans Parish Public Schools began on 24 September 1923, when he started teaching at the Willow Street School (now John W. Hoffman). At the junior high school level, he was able to put to use his athletic training and became coach of the Willow School football team and taught both boys and girls to play basketball, baseball, and tennis. On the side, he found time to coach for the McDonogh No. 35 High School football team and to officiate high school and college football games. He was one of the charter members of the New Orleans Board of Officials, the local governing body for sports referees.

In 1926, he was elevated to vice-principal of the Willow School and remained there for four years. His first principalship was of the Lee Station School in Gentilly (later McDonogh No. 40) to which he was appointed on 17 November 1930; and in February 1931, he was transferred to the Law Street School in the Ninth Ward (later Johnson Lockett). He spent a decade as principal of the Law Street School until becoming principal of the Leonidas Street School in Pigeon Town (now James Weldon Johnson) in 1941.

Xavier University Master’s Degree Recipients (1936) – Edgar Peterson Harney, M.A. History, at far right; r-l: Selma Woods Smith; Anna Marie Lacaze; Archie Wellington Arnaud.

During his time at the Law Street School, Mr. Harney earned his Master of Arts degree in History from Xavier University, which he completed in 1936. His thesis entitled “John McDonogh and His Contribution to Education in New Orleans,” was quite appropriately on the principal benefactor of public education in New Orleans. After graduating, Mr. Harney became a very active member of the Xavier Alumni Association and served as its president for three terms. He became the twenty-third “Life Member” of the association in 1953 and served on the Alumni Executive Board continuously until his death.

In September 1943, he was appointed to what was then the largest elementary school in the city, Thomy Lafon School, in the Uptown section at Magnolia and Seventh streets. Lafon School had a faculty of fifty-four teachers and more than two-thousand students. During his decade at Lafon, Mr. Harney built a strong school culture and push for higher standards which led to marked improvement in citywide achievement tests. In keeping with his interest in athletics, a full program of elementary level sports was carried out and Lafon School won many championships. Students engaged in radio plays, quiz programs, competitive music and dance activities, nature study and gardening, and character-building. With such tremendous practical experience in-hand, in the summers of 1948 and 1949, Mr. Harney traveled to Columbia University in New York where he took coursework towards a doctorate in education.

Edgar Peterson Harney and his wife, Dixie Exideia Sanders, on their wedding day

At the age of 40 on 21 October 1942, Edgar Peterson Harney was married to Miss Dixie Exideia Sanders (a native of Plaquemine, Louisiana) in a very simple ceremony in the rectory of Holy Ghost Church. Mrs. Harney’s bridesmaid was Miss Corinne M. Smith and Mr. Harney’s best man was his Xavier classmate and fellow principal, Archie W. Arnaud. Mrs. Harney was a graduate of McDonogh No. 35 High School (Class of 1930), the Valena C. Jones Normal School, and Dillard and Loyola universities. She was a teacher of clinical reading, most notably at Marie C. Couvent, Joseph A. Craig, Médard H. Nelson, and McDonogh No. 24. Mrs. Dixie Harney was active in many civic and social organizations, including the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the Canal Street YWCA, Kappa Delta Pi Education Honor Society, and the Women’s Auxiliary of Flint-Goodridge Hospital, the latter of which she served faithfully as president. Mrs. Harney loved to socialize and shared her husband’s interest in tennis.

Mrs. Dixie Exideia Sanders Harney, Educator, Socialite, Civic Leader

Prior to his marriage, Mr. Harney boarded for many years with the family of Henry E. Braden in their palatial home on Louisiana Avenue. Mr. and Mrs. Harney made their home at 3410 Allen Street in the Sugar Hill section of Gentilly. He was a devout Catholic, initially a member of Holy Ghost Parish and later Corpus Christi Parish. He was a member of Father Schmodry Council No. 52 of the Knights of Peter Claver and the Holy Name Society. He was very active in interracial work through the Catholic Committee of the South’s Commission on Human Rights, the New Orleans Urban League, and the NAACP. He was an active member of Sigma Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., and a past President and Vice-President of the famed Bunch Club.

In 1953, the Orleans Parish School Board returned to the three-tiered classification of schools with kindergarten through sixth grade as elementary schools; then separate junior high schools; and separate senior high schools. At that time, Mr. Harney was named principal of the Alfred C. Priestley Junior High School for one year and began the 1954 school year as principal of the Samuel J. Green Junior High School. He died on 19 October 1954 in Flint-Goodridge Hospital at the age of fifty-two, and after having served for thirty-two years in the New Orleans Public Schools. At his death it was said that, “In his personal philosophy he held to a thoroughness of purpose; a deep and abiding confidence in young people; and a very human understanding of his fellowman.” In 1955, the Orleans Parish School Board renamed the Willow Street School, where his educational career began, the Edgar P. Harney Elementary School.

Sources: “Edgar P. Harney Dies in Hospital,” The Times-Picayune, 20 October 1954, p. 2, col. 6-7; “Dixie Sander Harney,” obituary, The Times-Picayune, 4 February 1991, p. B-4, col. 5-6; Dixie Sanders-Edgar P. Harney engagement announcement, The Louisiana Weekly, 17 October 1942, p. 1; “Sanders-Harney Nuptials Simple,” The Louisiana Weekly, 24 October 1942, p. 4; “Edgar Peterson Harney” (vertical file), Louisiana Division Vertical Files, City Archives & Special Collections, New Orleans Public Library; Acts of Alphonse Barnett, 7 June 1851, vol. 5A, act 360, New Orleans Notarial Archives; Judy Riffel, New Orleans Register of Free People of Color, 1840-1864 (Baton Rouge: Le Comité des Archives de la Louisiane, 2003), 89 (Edward Harney entry); Green Polonius Hamilton, Beacon Lights of the Race (Memphis: E. H. Clarke & Brother, 1911), 418-419; Xavier University of Louisiana Class of 1936 Master’s Degree Recipients (photograph), Xavier University Photographs Collection, Xavier University of Louisiana Archives, photographer Arthur P. Bedou.

Jari C. Honora

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