 It was integration day today for the first grades of two New Orleans Elementary schools. And under pressure of the federal point, my mother told me where I was going to a new school. Then all of a sudden, a black car pulled up in front of my door. And it was the US 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 towels 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 in, 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 14th, 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 gotta 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 gonna happen with this building. And 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, oh, Lord. It was horrific. And then when Benjamin Moore donated us all this paint, I was really special. I was just amazed because I never thought it would look this good. I think I'm still walking in her dream sometimes. I just don't believe this. It's done. My vision has come to a reality and it's done. When I first said I was gonna do something with the building, I just wanted exhibits. We were gonna 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, and we're 55 or older. Our first floor, the bottom level will 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 gonna know. And I feel like that's what's so important about us doing what we're doing here. 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.