The original campus of Benjamin Franklin High School on 719 South Carrollton Ave., from 1957 to 1990. It is now Audubon Charter Middle School
 
Benjamin Franklin High School opened as a school for gifted children in 1957 under the direction of School Superintendent James F. Redmond and Principal Naomi Gardberg.
At the time, schools under the Orleans Parish School Board were segregated. In 1960, Judge J. Skelly Wright of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana ordered the desegregation of New Orleans schools in Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board. In response to the order, 2,000 youths surged through New Orleans streets in demonstrations against school integration on November 16, 1960. Only eight Franklin students were absent from class. A Time Magazine article later stated that Redmond's "proudest memory of the first day of integration three weeks ago, when truancy was rife, is that 'my Franklin kids stuck with it.'"

From its inception, Franklin was designed to be a public school for gifted students, and admissions requirements included having a 120 IQ. Following an appeal of Bush v.
Orleans Parish School Board, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stated in 1962 that Franklin was "one of the finest schools in the country for superior students" and suggested that African American students who met the school's exacting admissions requirements be admitted. Under pressure from federal courts, Franklin became the first public high school in New Orleans to desegregate in 1963.