Educator, civil rights trailblazer Juanita Thibeaux has died
Posted at 11:54 AM, Feb 24, 2021
and last updated 2021-02-24 19:24:34-05
Funeral services will be held on Friday, February 26 for Juanita Jackson Thibdeaux, a well-known Lafayette educator and civil rights trailblazer.
The service will be at 11:00 a.m. at Mount Calvary Baptist Church located at 414 South Weeks Street, New Iberia. For those who cannot attend in person, the funeral may be viewed online on the Mt. Calvary Baptist Church-New Iberia Facebook Page.
Services will be conducted by Reverend Mark Lewis, Pastor of Mount Calvary Baptist Church.
Thibeaux was a long-time educator in Lafayette parish, but before she was a teacher she helped integrate Lafayette s education systems. As a high school student, she led a strike that ended with black children allowed to ride parish school buses. After graduation, she was one of 80 black students who desegregated what is now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.