In 1960, when Leona Tate was only six years old, she became a civil rights leader in her community as she and two other Black girls desegregated New Orleans’ McDonogh Public School. Decades later, Dr. Tate reopened the closed McDonogh school building using National Park Service grants totaling in $1.5 million dollars in funding. The building, now known as the TEP Center, operates as a community and education center as well as affordable housing for seniors.

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MPS Episode 6: Dr. Leona Tate Transcript

[intro music] Dave: Welcome to My Park Story, presented by the National Park Service. People form connections with their favorite national parks and programs, and this park-cast is a place to come together and share those stories. I’m your host, Dave Barak. Today's guest is NPS grants recipient, Dr. Leona Tate.

[intro music fades out]  Dave (voiceover): In 1960, when Leona Tate was only six years old, she became a civil rights leader in her community as she and two other Black girls desegregated New Orleans McDonogh Public School. Decades later, Doctor Tate reopened the closed McDonogh School Building using National Park Service, Save America's Treasures, and African American Civil Rights Grants totaling $1.5 million in funding. The building, now known as the TEP Center, operates as a community and Education Center as well as affordable housing for seniors. This week marks the desegregation anniversary, which took place 63 years ago. Here is Doctor Tate's story.

Dave: It is my great honor today to be speaking with Dr. Leona Tate of the Leona Tate Foundation. Her story is an inspiration and the work that she has done with her foundation and with help from the Park Service is truly community, community-building and we're really excited to have her. Let's start from the beginning. You attended the McDonogh school when you were a girl, is that correct?

Dr. Tate: Yes. Yeah. Six years old. Yes.

Dave: Six years old. What was this event that you needed to prepare yourself for as a six year old girl?

Dr. Tate: New Orleans had selected two elementary schools that had formerly been an all white school to be desegregated, and it was three at McDonogh 19 where I attended- myself, Gail Etienne and Tessie Prevost and it was Ruby Bridges at William Frantz [Elementary School] and I was one of the little girls that was selected for that process. We had to be prepared a special way. We had to be rigorously psychologically tested. It was strange for a 5-year-old girl, you know, we didn't understand what was happening, but we knew something different was about to happen. And, but I knew I was going to a new school. Very excited about going to a new school because I was not happy with my old school. We were selected from an application that was placed in the newspaper for children in the 9th Ward area of New Orleans. There were, like, 140 families that turned these applications in. The criteria was very high. There was five families that were selected. We had to be psychologically tested and just doing, you know, different things to make sure we could endure what we were about to face. Out of the 140, I said five was selected but only four participated, because the criteria asked you to be a whole family, you could not be without a dad in the household, and one of the girls was without a dad, so she couldn't participate.

Dave: Do you know what your parents’ reasons were to want their girl to go to a newly desegregated school?

Dr. Tate: The only thing I could remember my mother ever saying was that she paid her taxes and she felt like I could go to get an education at a better school. But she had so much support, you know. So I think, you know, even though she was stron- willed, you know, I know she needed that backup to to go through this, and you know, both parents, and I really think that's really what got us true- my mother just wasn't, she wasn't giving up. She wasn't giving up. She just stood her ground. She was standing her ground.

Dave: You wanted to go, you said, because you didn't like your old school- but did you know what the challenges were going to be?

Dr. Tate: I had no idea, no idea. When I woke up that morning, I was, my house had family and friends that you would have thought it was a holiday, just somebody doing something to prepare. And everybody seemed to be in a good spirit, you know, things going along smoothly, and then all of a sudden a car pulled up in the front of the door, it was a black car. And one of the marshals got out and he came to the door and my house got real quiet and I can remember that silence today. I can remember that. So I knew then in the back of my mind, well what's going on. I knew something was about to happen. So before we approach the door, my mother had already told me when I got to the car and sat down to the back of the seat, don’t face to the window. And I tell children today, obedience had to play a big part of what we have to do because we really had to listen. And I was excited because I was getting a ride to school; I had been walking...

Dave: [laughs]

Dr. Tate: ...eleven miles to go to the old school and this school was in my neighborhood, you know, so I was very happy to be going to a new school

Dave: Going to the new school, which was in your neighborhood, did you know any of the other children? Did you know your classmates as neighbors or from other places around town?

Dr. Tate: I don't remember recognizing anybody when I got there. But you know, when we approached the school, we came in from th rear of the building and, you know, it was masses of people out front. I really, I didn't even pick up on the anger of the crowd. I just thought, to me, the only thing I could relate it to was that a parade was coming.

Dave: Wow.

Dr. Tate: Because I knew I knew a parade passed on that street. We entered the building, and it took us about half the day to get placed in the classroom. They asked us to take a seat on the bench that was outside the principal's office, and we sat there quite a while before they wanted to put us in the classroom. But I remember getting going into class, it was a full body of students, but I don't remember recognizing anybody, but I know our neighborhood was a mixed neighborhood at that tim, but I don't remember children my age, you know what I'm saying? And I tried to speak to a little girl that totally ignored me; it was like I was invisible. But before you know it, their parents were pulling all the white students out, they were leaving, and by 3:00 , they were all gone. We went only three in that building for the entire year and a half.

Dave: Did that register with you as a child?

Dr. Tate: Not right away, it didn't. You know, and like, I thought, I thought a parade was coming and I really thought that's why they were leaving, to go outside and watch the parade. And I kind of think, remember asking my mom why everybody gets to watch the parade, and I thought it was Mardi Gras because that's what it looked like. And she said that wasn't the case, but it didn't affect me. We didn't question it at all, you know. We know we wound up being the only three students, but we were comfortable at McDowell 19. We were very comfortable, you know, and and it was just a normal day. We we just couldn't play outside. We couldn't eat from the school, we had to bring out food and beverages. Water fountains were turned off. We couldn't see outside, no one could see inside. Didn't realize how protected we were and how confined we were, for protection.

Dave: It sounds like, in an effort to desegregate McDonogh that they, in effect, re-segregated it with only Black students in one class and white students in the other classes.

Dr. Tate: There was no white students in the other class. They all left.

Dave: They all left the school completely.

Dr. Tate: They all left the school completely. There were two brothers that lasted only till the end of the week- but we never saw them, they were in another part of the building. But all of the students were gone. When I said this was an empty building with just the three of us, it was an empty building with just the three of us. The teachers were in their classroom because they had gotten a telegram that morning saying that if they didn't report to work, they didn't have a job. But no other teacher had students but my teacher.

Dave: And how long did that last? That lasted for a day, a month?

Dr. Tate: A year and a half. We ended up first grade that way and we started 2nd grade the same way, the same way.

Dave: What changed in the middle of 2nd grade?

Dr. Tate: Well, Christmas came and when we came back, 25 other students had joined us, but they were all Black except two sisters. And well, after second grade, McDonogh 19 had become a school for Black students and we were transferred, because they wanted to keep the three of us in the white environment, to another all white school. So when we got transferred, we didn't have the marshals, or the police protection anymore. So in this transfer was at T.J. Semmes School, and that's where we faced integration. We endured it a lot.

Dave: I’m sure.

Dr. Tate: We endured it a lot, but we had to endure it for it to work.

Dave: When did it dawn on you that you were part of the civil rights movement? Dr. Tate: I don't think I understood that it was a movement, a civil rights movement, for a while, but I know in 3rd grade, we did realize that it was because the color of our skin that we weren't wanted. I think around the time, maybe 4th or 5th grade, I think around when, it might have been around when President Kennedy was assassinated, or I think mostly around when Martin Luther King was assassinated, you know, we were watching it on TV. And and I can remember my family talking and things l