Herbert Rothschild Jr
THE BAD OLD DAYS
A Decade of Struggling for Justice in Louisiana
Some stories don’t fade with time, they sharpen. This book is one of them. Dive inside a world that was changing whether Louisiana wanted it to or not. This is a memoir filled with history, a witness account of a place learning slowly and painfully about what justice really costs. This is not nostalgia. It’s a reminder that the struggle wasn’t abstract. It was lived.
About the Author
Herbert Rothschild Jr
Herbert Rothschild Jr. grew up amid the vibrant culture of New Orleans, a city that shaped his lifelong passion for learning and justice. After completing his undergraduate studies at Yale and graduate work at Harvard, he returned to Louisiana to teach in LSU’s English Department and Honors Program, where he inspired students from 1965 to 1987. His commitment to civil liberties took root early. In 1966, he founded the Baton Rouge chapter of the ACLU and went on to serve as Louisiana’s state president and legislative director. Throughout those years, he championed free speech, criminal justice reform, and protections for students, women, and individuals living with mental illness.
By the late 1970s, Rothschild’s concern over the US and USSR arms race pushed him into peace activism. In 1978, he launched Louisiana’s nuclear disarmament movement and founded the Center for Disarmament Education, an effort that evolved into the Bienville House for Peace and Justice. His dedication to peace later took him to New Jersey, where he led SANE/Freeze (now Peace Action), and then to Houston, where he helped establish the Houston Peace and Justice Center.
The Bad Old Days
Our Core Values
Mission
To preserve the real stories of Louisiana’s struggle for justice. Stories that remind us how courage actually looks when it’s happening in real time, without crowds or applause. The mission is simple, to keep memory alive so people can recognize the warning signs and the possibilities of change.
Approach
The book approaches history in a way that’s grounded and personal. Instead of lecturing, it invites readers into conversations, conflicts, and contradictions. It reveals systemic injustice through lived moments, through the people who fought, resisted, or simply endured. It blends storytelling with documentation, memory with analysis, and personal witness with historical truth.
Professionalism
This work stands on meticulous research, firsthand experience, transparency about the author’s role and respect for every individual whose story moves through these pages. It handles sensitive history with care, honesty, and the deep responsibility it deserves.
Vision
A world where honest history is not optional. A world where we understand that the past is not “past” but it lingers in our laws, our politics, and our culture. The vision is a society that learns from its mistakes instead of repeating them.
Why Choose?
Why Should Read This Book
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About the book
THE BAD OLD DAYS
The Bad Old Days isn’t just a recounting of civil rights history, it’s the backstage version. The book traces a decade-long fight for justice in a state still gripping segregation with both hands. Through court cases, local battles, university politics, and plain human stubbornness, Herbert Rothschild Jr. offers a guided tour of Louisiana’s struggle to accept the freedoms guaranteed by law but resisted in practice.
Inside these pages, you’ll encounter the messy reality of school desegregation, the rise of Black political power and the backlash that followed, the absurdity of Louisiana’s racial classification laws, the raw fear behind involuntary psychiatric commitments, the campus conflicts that shaped an entire generation and the everyday people who risked careers, reputations, and safety to push their state into the future. Its history told with the honesty of someone who lived it. What this book really reveals is how change happens painfully, slowly, and only because ordinary people decide the old ways can’t stand.
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Book Reviews
What Readers Says About Book
“The book fills in the missing pieces and the small struggles behind the big headlines. It changed how I see Louisiana and the activism.”
“Reading this made me realize that civil liberties were never inevitable victories. This is the kind of history that should be taught in classrooms.”
“What struck me most was the author’s willingness to admit uncertainty, frustration and even anger. That vulnerability makes the history hit amazingly harder.”
“Most books give you the sweeping overview but reading this felt like someone finally turning on a light in a room I didn’t know I was sitting in.”
Designation
“I finished it weeks ago and still catch myself thinking about some of the scenes especially the ones that show how ordinary people kept entire systems in place. Beautifully written.”
“The book forces you to ask the uncomfortable question. This stays with you and reminds that the progress depends on people not the law.”