Sixty years ago, Leona Tate, Gail Etienne, Tessie Prevost, and Ruby Bridges made history when they became the first black students to integrate public schools in New Orleans. “The New Orleans Four,” as they would later be known, were only six-years-old, each in the first grade.

Tate, Etienne, and Prevost went to their neighborhood school, McDonogh 19 in the Lower 9th Ward. Ruby Bridges went to the William Frantz School in her Upper 9th Ward neighborhood. All were accompanied by U. S. Marshals that first day, and all walked past angry mobs to attend their neighborhood schools, which most of their white peers had fled. In December of that year, the girls received words of encouragement from around the country in the form of Christmas cards. Tate entrusted her collection of cards to THNOC in 1990, and has continued to keep the story of the New Orleans Four alive through her work with the Leona Tate Foundation for Change.

In this virtual program, she will reflect on her experiences and the significance of these cards with THNOC President and CEO Daniel Hammer. In addition, Lydia Charles will discuss the new yearlong collaboration with the Leona Tate Foundation, the Tate, Etienne, Prevost (TEP) Center, and THNOC.