NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The first subdivision built for middle- and upper-class Black residents of New Orleans — and one of the first in the nation — is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

It’s great to have national recognition of the neighborhood’s historical significance after years of work, Gretchen Bradford, president the Pontchartrain Park Neighborhood Association, said Thursday.

“As soon as this stuff with COVID-19 is over we’re going to have a grand celebration,” she said in a telephone interview.

Pontchartrain Park opened in 1955. Although the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled a year earlier that segregated public schools were unconstitutional, segregation was still strictly enforced law in Louisiana and other Southern states.