Episode 5. Two Paths Cross. The Adult Education Center was the brainchild of a young, dashing, charismatic outsider – a Dominican Priest from Illinois. Father Timothy Gibbons reached out to the award-winning teacher Alice Geoffray, a 41-year-old mother of seven, because of her reputation as “the best” business education teacher in the city of New Orleans.This is a presentation of The 431 Exchange. We are a non-profit scholarship fund dedicated to adult students seeking to transform their lives through continuing education. We invite you to learn more about us by going to our website www.431exchange.com where you can hear more inspiring stories by signing up for our newsletter. Thanks!

Episode 4. Ms. Lorraine Washington: Tears Like Rain. Lorraine Washington suffered through the worst forms of segregation, intimidation, and voting prohibitions during the Jim Crow era. However, the promises [and failures] of job programs during the War on Poverty were equally frustrating. Graduation from such a program -- a nursing school – apparently only qualified her for janitorial work at a local hospital.This is a presentation of The 431 Exchange. We are a non-profit scholarship fund dedicated to adult students seeking to transform their lives through continuing education. We invite you to learn more about us by going to our website www.431exchange.com where you can hear more inspiring stories by signing up for our newsletter. Thanks!

Episode 3. Why Now, Why Us. Jeanne and Jeff Geoffray are the youngest children of the Adult Education Center’s Director, Alice Geoffray. As frequent visitors to the Center between 1965 and 1972, they witnessed the extraordinary transformation in their mother brought on by her work with the 431 alumnae, which set the stage for her career as the “Mother of Career Education” in Louisiana.This is a presentation of The 431 Exchange. We are a non-profit scholarship fund dedicated to adult students seeking to transform their lives through continuing education. We invite you to learn more about us by going to our website www.431exchange.com where you can hear more inspiring stories by signing up for our newsletter. Thanks!

Episode 2. Hilda Jean Smith: From GED to PhD. A day after her wedding, sixteen-year-old Hilda Jean Smith’s mother dies, leaving her the responsibility of raising 10 younger siblings. Though she eventually drops out of high school to do so, Hilda never loses sight that education was the most important stepping stone to a better life. In this interview with Hilda, we hear her incredible story.This is a presentation of The 431 Exchange. We are a non-profit scholarship fund dedicated to adult students seeking to transform their lives through continuing education. We invite you to learn more about us by going to our website www.431exchange.com where you can hear more inspiring stories by signing up for our newsletter. Thanks!

Episode 1. School Is In Session.  On a cold December day in 1965, an experimental school known as the Adult Education Center started its first day of classes. Little did they know that over the course of the next seven years, 431 graduates of mostly African American women would go on to make history by integrating the secretarial offices of the Deep South and other parts of the United States.This is a presentation of The 431 Exchange. We are a non-profit scholarship fund dedicated to adult students seeking to transform their lives through continuing education. We invite you to learn more about us by going to our website www.431exchange.com where you can hear more inspiring stories by signing up for our newsletter. Thanks!