 Hi everyone and welcome back to the forum webinar series. I'm Leslie Kanan, senior field officer with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In case you don't know, Preservation Leadership Forum is the professional membership program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This webinar series is made possible by members of Preservation Leadership Forum, and we sincerely thank those of you who are with us today. Today's webinar is titled The Untold Story of Leona Tate, Gail Etn and Tessie Prevost on the frontline of school desegregation in New Orleans. We are excited to have these three women join us today. Before we begin, here are a few technical logistics. We will take questions from the audience during the webinar. Please send questions via the Q&A function directly to panelists. You are welcome to submit answers and questions. You are encouraged, I'm sorry, you are welcome to submit answers at any point during the webinar, but we will be waiting until the Q&A section to answer questions. You are also encouraged to communicate to all participants through the chat function. The closed captioning function is enabled for this webinar. You can enable it and disable it either through the controls at the bottom of the Zoom screen or through your audio settings, depending on what version of Zoom you are using. Following the program, we will send out recordings of today's webinar directly to the email you use to register. All forum webinars are archived in our forum library. Lastly, we will periodically drop links in the chat associated with the presentation and the presenters for more information. Last year, we commemorated the 67th anniversary by looking at the cases that occurred before Brown v. Board of Education. That webinar featured descendants from the Dred Scott v. Sanford case and the Plessy v. Ferguson case. Tonight marks the 68th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Through the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, we are commemorating this anniversary by collaborating with the Brown Foundation for Education, Equity, Excellence in Research, and the Washburn School of Law to hear from the McDonough 3, Leona Tate, Gail Etn, and Tessie Prevost Williams. Three women who in 1960 as girls, six years after the Brown decision integrated McDonough 19 in New Orleans, Louisiana. We will hear their stories and learn about how the former McDonough 19 elementary school became the Tate, Etn, and Prevost Center. Before we get to their story, some of you may know that the National Trust has been playing a pivotal role in advocating for an advancing legislation related to Brown v. Board for over three years. I'm incredibly excited to announce that last week on May 13th, President Biden signed into law the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Park Expansion and Redesignation Act, creating multiple national park service designations that help share the full story of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, which led to the end of separate but equal doctrine and public education and mandated the desegregation of public schools. The site included in this new law are located in Claymont, Delaware, Hoquessen, Delaware, Wilmington, Delaware, Summerton, South Carolina, Farmfield, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and of course, Topeka, Kansas. This is an incredible way to commemorate this 68th anniversary of the Brown decision and to celebrate Preservation Month. Now, I would like to continue with a video about the former McDonough-19 building itself, now known as the Tate, Etn, and Prevost Center. The National Trust for Historic Preservation's African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund contributed a $75,000 grant donated by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2020, as well as funding from Capital One for the Trust Hope Crew Preservation Trades Program, which completed work on four staircases inside the school in the spring of 2021. As a partner in the National Trust where women made history campaign, Benjamin Moore and company gave 700 gallons of paint for the building's interior. Now, here is the video. It's integration day today for the first grades of two New Orleans Elementary schools and under pressure of the federal point. My mother told me when I was going to a new school that all of a sudden a black car pulled up in front of my door and it was the U.S. Marshals. My mother told me before I left out the door, she said, when you're getting a car, you sit to the back of the seat and don't put your face to the window. So we arrived and we came up the front stairs and we entered into this area and was asked to take a seat on a bench that was sitting on that wall right there. We sat there for hours. We played hopscotch on tiles at the floor because we were bored just sitting there, the three of us. Finally, they came to give us places in the classroom. Now, mine knew that was a full body of students when we got here. And once we entered the classroom, all their parents came and pulled all the white students out. So they left just the three of us in this entire building and that lasted for a year and a half. The impact on November 14, 1960 was something that I don't think our families expected. It went national. It started a domino effect really. Katrina was horrific, of course, to everyone. I think I stayed away two years. When we were allowed to come back into the lower ninth ward after Katrina, they were, let's go ride by. Let me see what the school looks like. They had put a for sale sign on the building. They had no idea what had happened at the school. It was still standing. And I kept saying, something's got to be done in this night ward to energize this community. We got to do something down here and I already was trying to see what was going to happen with this building. I said, well, I can't let them tear it down. I felt like this is the energizer for this community right now. The first time I came in, it was horrific. And then when Benjamin Moore donated us all this paint, that was really special. I was just amazed because I never thought it would look this good. I think I'm still walking in her dreams sometimes. I just don't believe it's done. My vision has come to reality and it's done. When I first said I was going to do something with the building, I just wanted exhibits. We were going to do it on each floor, but we had a housing need, especially in the lower ninth ward. So we have 25 affordable units on the second and the third floor for 55 or older. Our first floor, the bottom level, would be an interpretive center, a place where people come in to do things, to learn about racism, to learn about the history that we had here, to learn about the civil rights. If you don't know the history, you're not going to know. And I feel like that's what's so important about us doing what we're doing here. The next level is to undo racism. I want this to be the place for racial healing because I feel like even though we didn't understand what racism was, we were introduced to it here and I wanted to end here. Now I would like to introduce Michael Groty. He's a registered architect, construction manager and developer. He also considers himself an accidental preservationist and real estate developer. Mike has been with the Olympic Community Development in the New Orleans office since 2008. And in that time he has led the design and construction of projects in both New Orleans and on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Mike has led the implementation of over 50 million in real estate developments for the New Orleans office. These complex historic and adaptive reuse projects include the conversion of a former historic elementary school into a grocery store and office building, a former Catholic sanctuary into a theater company home with Black Box Theater, two other stages in ancillary support spaces and a former historic elementary school into a civil rights interpretive center and senior housing. His work on the ground has shaped his perspective on community development and design and the importance of community engagement and being useful to those in need. Mike has been an adjunct lecturer for Mississippi State University and Tulane University and holds an MS building construction management with a minor and community planning from Auburn University and a bachelor's of architecture from the University of Houston. Thanks Leslie. I think we can start the slides. Thanks everybody. My name is Michael Groty, and as Leslie introduced me I'm director at Olympic Community Development. But I want to first thank Cheryl Brown Henderson and the team at the Brown Foundation for inviting us and especially inviting me to share the stage on such an important event. And Leslie Cannon, Amy Webb, Priyachaya, Ronneson Kavage and everybody at the National Trust for helping put this together, and our moderator Jay Hall, I just, and I also want to thank everybody for coming tonight. It's really heartening to see that we have 91 participants on a Tuesday evening. The next slide please. Alembic is a community development real estate developer. I like to say that we are not the after school special real estate developer that wants to tear down grandma's house and build some some big shiny building. We like to work with communities to be useful to help them kind of execute their visions. We have a joint venture with nonprofits and other community organizations to do that. In both New York and New Orleans and places further afoot. Next slide. So, as you saw in this kind of really beautiful video that Benjamin Moore put together. Leona is is sort of standing in this building before this is probably five or six years ago. And Leona didn't sort of originally set out to accomplish what she did. She wanted the school back open to being a school ran into a lot of dead ends there, then knew that something else had to happen, and had to be. And I think, eventually Leona came to the realization that it had to be her to do this. And, and I think now that we've gone through all of this we know that she may have been the only one that could have done this. And I think it turned out to be a lot more daunting than than anyone first thought and I'm sure Leona ever first thought that to sort of do something with the building that was so important. In the video, a lot of folks didn't even know how important this building was so many, so many folks knew a story about a famous Norman Rockwell painting, but only attached one girl of the four little girls who integrated schools that day to that painting. And Leona had to talk to the school board and I don't think anybody on the school board knew exactly what happened at McDonough 19. Once Leona had a vision, she started going to talk to banks and developers and all other you know building industry folks and did not find a lot of support. Until she met Benjamin Warnke, the founder and principal at Alembic Community Development, our boss, and Benjamin said this could happen. And then he introduced us to the to Leona to the New Orleans office. Next slide. We first met Leona in 2015. I quickly Google the story, because I knew the painting. I knew this was and I was completely sort of shocked, honored, and also disappointed that I didn't know the story. We also knew the mountains that needed to be moved and the mountains that needed to be climbed to accomplish Leona's vision. So not only was this building kind of works for where after sitting vacant through almost 20 years. It's that through Katrina, Gustav, Isaac and countless other storms that have battered the city over the last 20 years. Next slide. But this building now looks like this now look like this, you know, next slide. And that was the same entrance. And not only were the, did we have to figure out these kind of how to fix this physically and really the physical part of some of this work is pretty straightforward. It's, it's, it's actually, what are we going to use the building for. And also buildings like this and visions like this don't fit into traditional financing models. We usually have two or three sources in a real estate development deal. This one had a few more. And this project of over 40,000 square feet needed 16 million a little more than $16 million to purchase and renovate. Next slide. And in order to do that, we needed all of these funders. And what I want everyone to kind of understand about this is that there are, I think, somewhere around 16 sources. And what's important is that what you have to do when you have all of these very different sources, you have to get all of these sources on board and aligned, and all working towards the same vision. They have their own agendas and their own sort of goals. It is a true testament, especially to my partner Jonathan light to the work that he did to, along with Leona to get all of these sources, all of these grants, all of these loans aligned to actually make this project happen. Next slide. And in order to do that, we also had to show everybody a great project. And so the partnership here is between the Leona tape foundation for change and a limbic community development. We call on the building together. LTFC Leona tape foundation changes 50.1% owners and a limbic is 49.9% owners, and the People's Institute who has been a partner from the beginning is is a tenant in the building. Next slide. The work we did together was to begin to observe the inequities in real estate development and in finance, and show that we are aware of these things and we are trying to do a better job about how we redevelop. And so we created a vision together. Next slide. And we created this preamble that is part of our operate I mean of our partnership agreement that's part of our legal contracts to operate this building in this property. We put this at the front page of our agreement. It says that we will work together. And, and really be aware of, of how we work in a way that is not historically how real estate development has worked in neighborhoods like this. Next slide. We believe that Equal Development is a is a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot, and that it's often defined by outcomes. What we want to define what we wanted to do is define it by process and that meant we defined it by ownership equity, first and foremost means ownership. And this building would not be in the hands of this partnership if it weren't for Leona Tate. And so, having 50.1% ownership of this building was important to all of us. But it also means to share an economics profit and loss in the balance sheet to have a balance to have a property like this on the balance sheet of a nonprofit is meaningful, extremely meaningful. Decision making. And Leona will tell you, we've had a weekly meeting for several years, four plus years, even five years, deciding on how this building how this project would happen. We believe that that is the process towards equitable, equitable development. And, and we're really proud of the outcome that this process created. Next slide. And a quick diagram, this is all sort of like hieroglyphics to most, but it shows how we created this project and where the ownership is and where the money flows. I just wanted to put that up there to show that like this is really sort of how how we did this. Next slide. And so, I'm just going to kind of rifle through some pictures here. But what I want folks to sort of understand is that I believe historic preservation is in for a reckoning. And we often look at buildings, and we sort of look at them and often historic preservation looks at buildings through a beauty standard, or an aesthetic standard. We need to save these buildings because they're beautiful. I believe that historic preservation is about the preservation of story. And I think this building has taught me that lesson. This building is on the National Register and this building is being preserved not for its beauty, but for what happened here. And, and we have to understand how to separate those things. Because 2% of the 95,000 buildings on the National Register for Historic Preservation National Register of Historic Places represents the black experience in America 2%. And if we begin to peel that back. The reason why we have this beauty standard, especially with buildings in the south is because there are certain kind of folks who could pay for beautiful buildings. And there was a certain way that they raised or were able to afford that, including the person that this former school building was named after John McDonough. John McDonough made his fortune off of the blacks off of the backs of enslaved humans. He donated his money when he died to the children, the school children of New Orleans and Baltimore, and New Orleans built 40 schools and put his name on them. And that school, this particular school was was was segregated was all white from 1929 to 1960. And we have to understand that we shouldn't be saving buildings because they're beautiful that we need to be saving buildings for their stories. And they're obviously if there's only 2% of 95,000 buildings on the register that represent black stories, we have a long way to go. Next slide and then these are the slides from the ribbon cutting that happened May 4, 2022 week, two weeks ago. And this building is up and running. And we're very proud and excited to be a part of this. Thank you. Thank you so much Michael for that great presentation and those great images. Now I would like to introduce our moderator and our honored panelists who you are here to see. First, our moderator, Jay Hall. Jay Hall is a deputy director and general counsel for the Kansas Association of counties and his dual role as deputy director and general counsel Jay implements the legislative policy for the association and its members through lobbying efforts as well as offering legal counsel to the association, its executive board and employees and its member counties. Jay received his juris doctorate from Washburn University School of Law. Jay was inducted into the Order of Barristers in 2007, and Jay lives in Topeka with his wife Danielle, who is also a graduate of Washburn law and a successful attorney. Next, we have our panelists. First is Leanna Tate, who was born in 1954 and was chosen as one of the three little girls to break barriers and education on November 14 1960 by desegregating with Donna 19 and all former, a former all white elementary school in New Orleans. Like Gail Etn and Tessie Prevost, she also integrated TJ Sims Elementary and third grade, then went on to desegregate Cone Junior High. When it was time for high school Leanna made history one more time when she, Gail and Ruby Bridges integrated Francis T. Nichols High School. Leanna spent her working career at Bell South Telecommunications AT&T, the US Postal Service and in the private sector. Leanna Tate is the founder and executive director of the Leanna Tate Foundation for Change Incorporated, which owns and operates the Tate Etn and Prevost, also known as TEP, Interpretive Center on site for the former McDonough 19. Next, we have Gail Etn, also born in 1954, and also one of the three little girls who desegregated McDonough 19. Gail has spent her working career at Bell South Telecommunications Louisiana State University Medical Center and the US Postal Service in New Orleans and she currently resides in Oklahoma. Tessie Prevost is also one of the three little girls. Students like Gail and Leona left McDonough 19 to desegregate TJ Sems Elementary, where she attended until sixth grade. After sixth grade, Tessie and her parents agreed that she would no longer participate in the desegregation process. Tessie graduated from Joseph S. Clark High School. After 25 years of service, Tessie retired from LSU Dental School after 20 plus years of service as an administrative assistant in the Department of Pediatric Dentistry. Tessie currently resides in Laplace, Louisiana. And now I'll turn it over to Jay. Thank you Leslie and thank you to our to our three esteemed guests is actually looking at the Tate Etn Prevost Center. What kind of change are you hoping to achieve with the programs that you have at the Tate Etn Prevost Center? I really hope to change the energy of this community first. Since Katrina, we have just been devastated with, with nothing, you know, not even a decent supermarket. Hopefully, my next hope is to educate visitors that are not aware of the history here. And just not aware of how to communicate when it comes around to racism. And I hope to, to, to at least mingle with these, these groups that come in so that we can learn to have that talk and, and, and I really choose to have some dialogue about it. We have a lot of programs I do hope that you did mention that we have apartments upstairs that the tenants upstairs will be involved. And that's what happens here. I try to make them aware of what's happening here before they move here, because I really don't want anybody being uncomfortable living above what's going on in the interpretive center. We are also partnering with People's Institute to engage on the undoing racism workshops, and that I kind of like want to extend everyone that's involved here to go through that workshop. And hopefully, that'll get things started in this community. And people understand what really happened here and why it happened. Sachin Miss Prevost, do you have anything that you'd like to add there. Yeah, I wanted to say also that, hopefully, this will bring attention to the culture of the city, and what New Orleans, how important New Orleans was to the civil rights movement. There are lots of things that happened, leading up to 1960 that happened in New Orleans. And hopefully, that will bring attention also to the city, and the importance like I said the importance that we dealt with in them in the civil rights movement. At the end, did you have anything else you wanted to add? About the building. I'm just glad, grateful that Leona had that vision to have this project with the building. I'm glad that it's completed. And I hope the people in the Night Ward, Louisiana, United States, all over the world have a chance to come down and see the work that has been done. It can learn a lot about the experience that we had there. I want to turn to those experiences and talk to you about that day, November the 14th of 1960. First off, what do you remember about that day? What I remember is just preparing for school. Just a regular day, preparing for school. My grandmother prayed morning, noon and night. And that morning, she had a special prayer. I had no idea what, you know, what she was thinking, but she prayed for the teachers. She prayed for the students. She prayed for us that we would have a peaceful day. And I had no idea what she was talking about, because I mean we say prayers every morning, but it was never that intense, you know, to where the school was involved or whatever. And just remembering the marshals coming, my dad and I, my dad and I love, and we got in the marshals car. And when we got to school, he told me, he said, give me a hand, look straight ahead, and I'm here. We got out the car and there was this mob, you know, people say a crowd, but that was a mob that was out there waiting for us. And had no idea what we were going, what we were facing that day. No idea what we were going to face that day. And we marched up the stairs with the marshals. And got in school, and they didn't know what to do with us. You know, just we sat down on the bench outside the principal's office. And we sat there, like we honestly we said, it seemed like forever. And when we were finally brought to a classroom. There were a class full of children, all white children. But by the end of the day, it was just three of us. We were just taking kids out of the, out of the classroom. And it was like that for the rest of the year, and half year of the next year. And we just, it was, it was just seemed like it was just normal to us. The teachers were there, was still there. But the children were gone. There weren't, there weren't any kids in school at all, but the three of us. I was just going to say that my remembrance of that day. I don't know for what reason, I've seen to block all of that out. I don't really remember anything before we got to the school. I remember riding in the car and pulling up in front of the school and seeing the mobs of people. I remember seeing the garbage can garbage can tops sticks and whatever the crowds had in their hands. And they were hollering and calling, calling us names. I soon I don't know what they were saying. To me, it looked like if they could get to us, they'd kill us. They were looking just that angry. It was just a large crowd of people mild. It was acting really acting crazy to a sexual make all these noises and screaming and having things in their hand that if they can get to us, they will hurt us. I remember walking up the stairs. I also remember sitting in that stairwell on the stairway and I guess the best to be part of the school where we sat out there for a long time. We didn't tell they decided what to do with us. And as the owner said, we just played. And that was our first time that we really can say that three of us got together. And that I can recall. And from that system that we have. Right. Well, my family didn't talk to talk around me much about it. I knew I was going to a new school. And I was happy to go to a new school I had seen the building. And it was a three story building, whereas the school that came from was a one story building so as a child I thought I was going to a big school. But I was excited to go to a different school because I was uncomfortable at my, my old school. So that morning. Before the muscles arrived we had family and friends they had helping my mother prepare me you would have thought it was a holiday. But the black car pulled up in front of door and then everybody got quiet. So I was like something's about to happen. And I remember my mother saying when you get in that car. Put your face to the back of that seat and do not put your face to the window and once we arrived at the building we came in from the rear. And when we turned on St. Claude Avenue. There was a mob of people out there, you know, and I don't know if I was just not looking out of the window like she said but I didn't recognize that they were, they were being mean or they will be and I just heard a noise as if he was at a parade and I was just on that street and that's what I really thought they were out there and I thought the police on horseback were holding a crop back so that the car we were in wouldn't get them. And I think I even questioned my mom about it why we have to go to school and they got the white, you know, everybody else got to watch the parade and she said that wasn't, that wasn't the case. So we did get to enter the building and it was a calm site on that side of the street because the crowd couldn't get to the side where we were on so we did enter. But once we got in there was a long wait for even accepted us. Speaking of acceptance, do you happen to remember anything about your teachers that first year since it was the three of you with the teachers do you remember anything about those first teachers. We only interacted with our teacher who was Ms. Myers and she was a very, very, she was good to us. She was more motherly, I can say, than she was a teacher. Because she was elderly. And I just can't remember really how she looked I know she was small, small for a lady, and but she was elderly and I wish I could even meet a family today to even say thank you but we didn't interact with any other teacher in the building they were in a class because they were ordered to come to school and not have a job. But we didn't interact with anybody else. We didn't do anything didn't even realize how confined we were. Because we couldn't roam the building we didn't need in the cafeteria, we had to bring our food and beverages we couldn't play in a yard we couldn't see out the windows they were papered up and but we were comfortable. We had one another that's why we just three of us. And we were prepared and we and that's the way we were prepared we knew we had to stick together. We knew that leading up to that day did you, did it had anybody told you that what you were doing was was going to be historic or important or, or told you that that about what was happening. We realized how historic it was going to be, you know, I really think we realized that I thought it was just going to be a local issue. I think we cut my family probably realized that it went nationwide is when family members from other states were calling saying that they have seen us on TV. And I think that's when they realized that this was something big, you know, it was really big. I didn't really realize what was happening how big it was going to be. But after the process happened. And then I talked to my dad, and we had gone through something that a six year old shouldn't go through. My daddy told me that if he had it to do again he would. Even if he knew the things in advance and he had no then he said that he would do it again, so that I can get a better education we were passing up on schools that had better books, all the pages to go to and didn't have the proper things that we needed. So if the choice was to be made again you could do it all over again, despite what I went through. Were any of you ever afraid or nervous about what was happening around you. I was afraid when I was on that call didn't it look like I was a bird. What was happening I saw the crowds of people. I know you saw them be guys looking at those. And it got to me. You know I was afraid, or once I got in the school, and I got the neon intensity and we had our teacher. I wasn't afraid at all because it was just the four of us, the three teach me the three of us and I will teach you know and that's what we had every day. You know so once I got in the building we were safe I guess I felt safe. And the motion was still there but we didn't know it because we never saw them. They brought us to school and they were there when it was time for us to go home but in between the time, we didn't see them at all. So they had left, but I felt safe in the school at McDonald 18. I don't think I was afraid. And I think I wasn't afraid because my family didn't talk around me to say anything to make me afraid but I don't know it was just it was, I don't know I was just happy to go to a new school and just just to get away from the crowd was just a new thing for me and then and then to get a ride to school for somewhere that I had to walk in 10 or 11 blocks to get there was a luxury you know and I kind of happy in the motion. If they didn't want to do it, we did it. We had guidelines to follow that they prepared us with before then we knew we couldn't exit a door without being received by Marshall, you know, never could we go on the side of a classroom with a window that that was totally out. The windows were papered up no one could see us and we can see out, but we did everything together. What's something that that all of us myself and the people listening, what can we learn from your experience. I like to say something on that. I am. I want them to learn the truth. The whole story that on November 14 1960, there was four little black girls that integrated to schools in New Orleans, one in the upper night war, and one in the lower night war. And that was a part of history. You can change the story, but you can't change history. It's always going to be the same. And just, I just want everybody to know that. The three of us are three members of the New Orleans for because it was for us and that's what we were called the New Orleans for they call us a MacDonald three because we went to MacDonald, but we are three members of the New Orleans for and that segregation happened on that day in two separate schools. One reason it was two separate schools is because schools were by districts. Yes, so we had to attend the school that was in our district. And we live in the district of MacDonald. Walk in distance walk in distance to the school which was in our neighborhood. Yeah. That's what I want everybody to know the truth, the whole truth. One last before we open it up for questions from from the audience itself, but how can you make your experiences today. And, and bless you, how can we take today, the experiences that you had and translate that into how we live today. I know we've got the Tate Etienne prevo center but how can we take those lessons and move those into today. We're just going to keep talking. Share it with children. My, my thing is for them to come in just walk this walk that we walked. You know, and hopefully, I will give them the feeling of what we're doing and what we went through during that time. I can explain it to anyone you know a lot of people, you know they'll ask you questions you know and then when you tell them what happened, then you kind of feel what happened but if you don't really see some of the videos of that time. It's hard. It's hard. One thing people need to know that it wasn't an easy, easy excuse me thing that we did. It was tough. We were six years old we were little girls, you know, for the go to some of the things that we did. It wasn't normal for a six year old. It wasn't an easy step for us to do what we did, but we stuck together and we did it we survived. Everybody needs to know, and they also need to take advantage of all of the opportunities all the doors that were open, because of what happened in 1960 by the New Orleans for it looks like we've got a couple of questions. So the first question is, were you chosen to desegregate the school or did your families volunteer to have you desegregate the school. We were chosen. There was an application that was placed in the newspaper for children in the black children in the ninth ward. We were psychologically tested at five years old. And I think 140 applications of a little you may have been a little bit more than that. That works that were turned in the only accepted five, but only four families participate. That should have been with another little girl that should have been at France with Ruby and she wasn't accepted because she didn't have a dad in the household. How did that experience shape the rest of your lives. As you move forward in your lives. Didn't talk about it for years. I think we were more about it together. Yeah, that's the only time people some people didn't want to hear about it. You know, they didn't want to hear about it. We did the same thing where the practice explained them that no, it was different. It was different. So what we did back then, you know, and when you say that to some people, well, you know, they didn't want to hear the story. They didn't want to hear what we all that we went through. So when we got together, the three of us we'd always talk about it. You know, I enjoy talking about it would be on interest, but a lot of the other people just didn't want to hear about it. I didn't talk about it for a long time didn't even tell my children. It was almost teenagers when they realized what I had gone through. If you knowing that you didn't talk about it for a long time. What's the difference now to make you want to talk about it and get this important story out in front of all of us. By visiting different schools and seeing the need of them knowing where they come from or the history of the territory that they're walking on, you know, being from New Orleans. I can go out of state and talk to a school and they knew all about me and right here in New Orleans they know nothing. I experienced that today. Just, it's easier now for me, I guess because I've been talking a lot. And before it was so overwhelming. Like you'll say if one of us start crying all of us would start crying. So, but I think the more we talk about it and more we get it out there. It needs to be told, it needs to be told. And it's getting easier. It might not seem like it's always crying, but it's getting easier. And I enjoy being a testimony on when we do it so people need to know, they need to know the process that happens so that they can attend a school that they attend attend today. I have to have the education that they have today because that wasn't available for all people for minorities lacks back then. There was a lot of sacrifices that was made. You know, our parents, them, they don't want that were important. They don't want me to decisions to let us go through what we went through. You know, so they need to know that. Children today that obedience played a big part of what we had to do because we had to, we had to listen. Yes, we really, we really had to listen. People watching you, you know, be careful about what you do, someone is always watching you. And he said that all the way to the high school, you know, we in 12th grade 11th grade, and people why they still want to be there. Yeah, you're watching you're waiting for y'all to mess up. And he said that because we integration progressed as we progress to grade, and once we got to 10th grade. It opened up all the way through 12th grade, but that's the way it was. You mentioned that there was, there was pressure from people watching you. What was that experience like overwhelming. Why so overwhelming. This, it wasn't a normal thing for a child, you know, I mean, I had gotten to the point where you brought it up, I just bust out and start crying because I just didn't want. I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to ask a question it was always a lot of questions and it was always. It was just a lot more outside of school in school. It was just an emotional time. For me it was. And even now sometimes it's, it's hard, and it gets emotional, but I'm willing to go through with it and tell the story and get it out there. Because it's something that needs to be done. People need to know, like you want to say you right there in New Orleans it happened in New Orleans and the people in New Orleans, except for the older crowd older people who have gone on to glory other than the people there now. They act like we talk about something that happened in another country. You know they don't know some people even say we thought y'all were dead. We still here. You know so the story needs to be told. The whole story needs to be told. Another question that that's coming up is, it asks, is there a documentary on on your experiences and if not is there interest in creating one several. Yeah, yeah. We're in a process now of documentary supposed to be made so when that's completed. I'm sure the information beyond this or you can see, you've been working on it so that's the next step, try to finish this document as it is being created. Jay, this is, there's a question that is that camp in the chat. Someone wanted to know if they had integrated at different levels other than elementary school. Okay, I saw that I answered that one we did we integrated all each level until we reached 10th grade, and it was open up to everyone. If you were in 10th or higher you couldn't go to school to a white school until it was opened up for 11th and 12th grade, and that's what happened. I see a question. As you talk about your experiences. Are you experiencing any, any blowback from the conversation surrounding critical race theory now. I think it should be in the schools. It definitely needs to be in the schools. I'd like to have a certain boy it's own, it's own subject. But I believe that civil rights or black history is a part of every subject. But the problem is it's not always a pretty picture. Right. And that's part of the reason why they don't want it in schools. But we lived it. And that's about a history, what we went through. You can change the story but you showed up can change history. That's just fat, but you say that's it. That's a fact. You can't change history. They're trying to change history trying to change the truth. And I know my sister got me on the same way. But they see the glory but they don't know the story. They don't know the story. And it's not always pretty. We just say Leon. So they see the glory now but they don't see they don't know the story. They don't know the story. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. No, I was just saying that's why we're here today, so that the story can get out there. I think we've got one time for one last question. And that was, were you, did you ever have the opportunity to be in class with any white students or were they always removed as you move through the different grades. Well, we got the Sims. It was a different, it was a different ball game. Yeah, we were in school with white kids, but we didn't have the marshes or the police protection there either. So we it was horrific at Sims, you know, we really, really faced integration at Sims is really where we face it and I don't wish that on nobody's child. Sims are completely different experiments than we had at McDonald's. You're gonna see some tears, keep asking about Sims and you'll see a lot of tears. I'm trying not to be trying not to. You don't want to go there. Yeah. But that's a different story. It's not a pleasant one. That's probably why they don't want it in the books. You don't want to hear about that story. That's a whole nother ball game. Yeah. But y'all you remember when we went to Baton Rouge. It was a presidential. Yes, let's vote. And there was a representative. He's a senator. He was a senator from Covington. He was from here. I thought he said Covington. Anyway, he came in and he asked to shake our hand. Because he said that he was one of the kids that were out, that was at Sims and who harassed us. And just gave us hell. He prayed with us that day, didn't he? Yeah. He wanted to apologize. He said, I just want to pray with you all. You know, and say I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Because Sims was as close to hell as I can think of. As a child. You know, I also realized after going through this, that a lot of that was taught to the kids. All the kids, all the white kids didn't want to, they didn't want to be ugly with us. And they didn't want to be ugly with us. And they said, you know, they were going to turn black. And that's what they were taught that a lot of the kids, some of them got it in, you know, naturally, but there were some that, that were just taught that. You know, and today I have some friends, I live in Oklahoma. And they said they don't understand how I don't hate all white people. And that's what I tell them, when we went through with those kids, a lot of them were taught that they didn't know any better. They didn't know what their parents told them to do. Like I say, some naturally, but some were just told that. And I have several white friends in Oklahoma. We weren't raised like that. We weren't raised that way. You know, we had the sense to realize that. You know that there was school and hate somebody just because their skin was a different color. We didn't, we know nothing about that. It's not the way we were raised. I see we're getting close to the seven o'clock hour. So I do want to offer my thanks to all three of you for coming and telling us your story, but also for, for the things that you did to open things up for me, I, I don't know that I would have been able to do the things I've done in my life, if not for exceptional people like you that opened those doors for me. When you didn't even know who I was, didn't even know that I would exist. So I want to express my gratitude to all of you for, for doing what you did so that I can walk this path myself. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So much to, to Jay and to our amazing panelists. I want you guys to keep the discussion going on our forum connect. This is our online community for people in the, for people in the community. We have active conversations happening all week around topics from section 106 to women's history at historic sites. If you, if you haven't joined connect yet, you should. It's a great place to keep up this conversation and start more. Please join us for these upcoming preservation leadership forum webinars. And thank you to everyone who attended today's webinar. A special thank you to our speakers for sharing your amazing moving incredible stories with us. Thank you so much. And if you have any questions following this webinar, please don't hesitate to contact us. Our email is form at saving places.org. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.