Recognized for her incredible impact, Community Activist Leona Tate visited #KCCA today to grace the hallway named in her honor and visit with #KIPPsters and school leaders.
On Nov. 14, 1960, Leona Tate, Tessie Prevost, Gail Etienne and Ruby Bridges, four black girls in first-grade, desegregated two elementary schools in the Lower Ninth Ward. Bridges attended William Frantz Elementary School and Tate, Etienne and Prevost attended McDonogh 19. Tate now co-owns the TEP (Tate, Etienne and Prevost) Center which is the former school campus.
“It was important for Ms. Leona Tate to come visit with students, because I emphasize to students ‘we stand on the shoulders of giants’ and she is definitely a giant. She is living, breathing history that continues the work of anti-racism daily and when she began her work she was a student just like them,” Ms Jones, the school principal said.
Hallways were also named after Oretha Castle Haley, Dr. Norman C. Francis, Rev. Avery Alexander, and Fats Domino.