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Be The Change You Want To See...

Welcome to the Leona Tate Foundation for Change

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NEWS

As a 6-year-old, Leona Tate helped desegregate schools. Now she wants others to learn that history

Katy Reckdahl January 1, 2019

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Civil Rights Pioneer & Community Advocate - Leona Tate

Leona Tate, 65, who helped to desegregate the Deep South when she was six years old. Gus Bennett/New Orleans People Project

NEW ORLEANS — Clutching a small purse, six-year-old Leona Tate walked into McDonogh 19 Elementary School here and helped to desegregate the South.

Images of that November morning in 1960 are seared into the national memory: Tate and three other little first-grade girls in white dresses and hair ribbons walking into New Orleans schools, flanked by federal marshals and heckled by hateful crowds. READ MORE.......

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On November 14, 1960,  four courageous African American 6yr. old girls intergrated New Orleans Public Schools. The McDonogh Three - Leona Tate, Gail Etienne and Tessie Prevost were the first to be escorted by U.S. Marshals when they arrived at an all-white segregated school called McDonogh No. 19. On the same fateful morning, another six-year-old girl named Ruby Bridges integrated a second New Orleans public school called William Frantz Elementary.

The Courage of Four   

November 14, 2010 - 50th Anniversary of New Orleans Public School Desegregation

Plessy & Ferguson Foundation, the Louisiana Museum & the City of New Orleans History Marker Ceremony 

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presents

The Tate Etienne Prevost Interpretive Center 

Help support the transition of the McDonogh #19  Historical Landmark into the Tate Etienne Prevost  Interpretive Center.

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LTFC Storytellers Experience 

 

This 1.5-hour visit to the Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum, students participated in a guided museum tour, engaged in a TEP talk with Leona Tate, and recorded their oral history. 

 

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Our foundation receives offers from many people who are interested in getting involved in the community we serve and we are truly grateful. See what areas are a match for you...

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