Oretha Castle: Civil Rights Activists & Organizer of the New Orleans Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation

Oretha Castle served as a deputy administrator at Charity Hospital where she instituted better health care for the Black Community.

While working at the hospital, she helped organize the New Orleans Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation.

Haley’s father found work as a longshoreman and her mother, Virgie, worked as a barmaid for celebrated restaurateurs and supporters of the New Orleans’s civil rights movement.

Haley served as CORE president from 1961 to 1964, an unusual position for a black woman in a major civil rights organization.

While at Charity, she helped organize the New Orleans Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation.