Sybil Haydel Morial was born in New Orleans and grew up under the rigid segregation of the laws of the South. She attended Xavier University for two years and transferred to Boston University where she received both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. Sybil has been a classroom teacher in Newton Massachusetts, Baltimore Maryland and New Orleans’ Dunn School in the Desire Housing Development for a total of 13 years.

After the United States Supreme Court rendered its unanimous decision outlawing segregation in public schools, she decided to return to the South to become involved in the change that was to come. She became involved on several Boards in New Orleans while teaching and raising her children. When she was denied membership in the League of Women Voters, she founded the Louisiana League of Good Government dedicated to voter education and voter registration in the Black community. During that time, she made a career change and served as an Associate Dean and Associate Vice President at Xavier University for 28 years. During her tenure at Xavier, she was executive producer of “A House Divided” documenting the desegregation of the New Orleans Public Schools with James Earl Jones as narrator.

When New Orleans hosted the Louisiana World Exposition in 1984, she stepped up to lead the creation of the Afro-American Pavilion, “I’ve Known Rivers”, which presented the contributions of African Americans to American history. While displaced after her house flooded during Hurricane Katrina, she wrote her memoir “Witness to Change: From Jim Crow to Political Empowerment.” Sybil continued to be involved in the community and served on the boards of Liberty Bank and Trust, WLAE-TV, the Amistad Research Center, the Louis Armstrong Jazz Camp for young people, and Faith in Action dedicated to community organizing in cities all over the United States as well as Rwanda, Africa, El Salvador and Haiti.

Ernest “Dutch” Morial, Sybil’s husband, achieved many “firsts” in his career: first African American to graduate from LSU Law School, first African American Assistant U. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, first African American Juvenile Court Judge, first African American Judge in the Louisiana Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit and the first African American Mayor of New Orleans.

Sybil was involved in all of his campaigns. Her five children, Julie, Marc, Jacques, Cheri and Monique continue the Morial tradition of service in their professional and personal lives.