Rudy Lombard

Civil rights activist Rudy Lombard was a Freedom Rider and a participant in lunch counter sit-ins. As a Xavier student, he was the first president of the local CORE chapter. He was best known for taking a seat at the whites-only lunch counter at McCrory’s Five-and-Dime on Canal Street as one of the CORE Four, along with Oretha Castle, Cecil W. Carter, Jr., and Sydney Goldfinch, Jr. Their case, Lombard v. Louisiana, went to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the arrests were eventually overturned. The case was one of several that became precedents for striking down segregation laws and practices.