Little girls that left giant footprints in N.O.
24th February 2020 · 0 Comments
By Edmund Lewis
Contributing Writer
Even today, it is easier to imagine little Black girls jumping rope or playing with dolls than it is to picture them strutting onto a dangerous battlefield to battle a formidable opponent. But that’s exactly what Ruby Bridges, Leona Tate, Gail Etienne and Tessie Prevost did when they took on Jim Crow as elementary school students.
Some might say these four little girls were literally born for the civil rights struggle that was on the horizon.
Most of us are more familiar with Ruby Bridges story than we are with the story of the trio of small civil rights activists who were dubbed the “McDonogh Three.”
Ruby Nell Bridges Hall (born September 8, 1954) is an American civil rights activist. She was the first African-American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans during the city’s school desegregation struggle on November 14, 1960.
Mind you, this campaign took place just five years after 16-year-old Emmett Till was brutally murdered in Money, Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a while woman and in the midst of a horrific era of domestic terrorism that sparked the historic Civil Rights Movement.
Bridges was the eldest of five children born to Abon and Lucille Bridges. As a child, she spent much time taking care of her younger siblings, though she also enjoyed playing jump rope, softball and climbing trees. When she was 4 years old, the family relocated from Tylertown, Miss., where Bridges was born, to the Crescent City In 1960, when she was 6 years old, her parents responded to a request from the NAACP and volunteered her to participate in the integration of the New Orleans school system, even though her father was hesitant.
Six years after the landmark Brown. v. the Board of Education Suprerme Court decision, the Orleans Parish School Board succumbed to mounting pressure from the federal government to desegregate its public school system and administer an admissions exam to students at the segregated elementary school Bridges attended. Six Black students passed the exam, including Bridges. Two of those six students decided to remain at the segregated Black school, while Bridges and the other three, the “McDonogh Three,” decided to take on school segregation.
The McDonogh Three, all of whom were also 6 years old, were the first Black students to integrate the all-white McDonogh #19 Elementary School. Leona Tate, Tessie Prevost and Gail Etienne lived in the 9th Ward in an all-Black neighborhood. Even though segregated schools had been illegal since the Brown decision, no states in the Deep South had taken action to integrate their schools. Leona Tate, Gail Etienne and Tessie Prevost on Nov. 14, 1960 walked into the previously all-white school for the first time in their young lives.
During the 20th century, there were a series of political advancements that contributed to the integration of public schools in the United States. In 1950, in the McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, public schools in America were forbidden from discriminating against students because of their race. In 1952, civil rights attorney A.P. Tureaud, with help from Thurgood Marshall and others from the Legal Defense and Educational Fund of the NAACP, acted on behalf of Black parents to end segregation of New Orleans’ schools. They charged New Orleans that the state’s public school system was unconstitutional and violated the 14th amendment.
In 1954, the Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education, became the most impactful decision concerning the integration of public schools in America, and ironically happened in the birth year of the McDonogh Three and Ruby Bridges. The syllabus from this case said: “Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment – even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors of white and Negro schools may be equal.” This case outlined that the doctrines that had previously been established in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) were unconstitutional and must be eliminated from public education.
Finally, in February 1956, Judge J. Skelly Wright formally issued an order for the Orleans Parish School Board to desegregate its schools, and in 1960 he approved a plan to do this. He ordered integration to start on the third Monday in November 1960.
These court decisions, new laws and political statements caused uproar in the white community, many of whom thought Blacks were inferior to whites and should be educated in a separate facility.
The Louisiana Pupil Placement Law demonstrated white society’s views on segregated education, and how they wanted to prohibit Black children from being in the same school as white children. This law created a board of officials that had the authority to assign students to the school they would attend in their state. This meant that all Black students would be assigned to a separate school than the white students, and the majority of these schools would be in much worse condition than the white-only schools. When the federal government finally forced New Orleans’ public school system to desegregate its schools, the Pupil Placement Board created an admissions test that Black students had to pass to attend a school with white children. This test was intentionally very challenging and was made to limit the amount of applicants able to integrate the schools, which is why only four girls were able to attend McDonogh #19 and William Frantz in 1960. The Orleans Parish School Board was eventually forced to abolish the Pupil Placement Law and expand integration, but again, it is an example of how the state government worked around the federal government’s orders to prevent African-American integration.
White discrimination continued for more than five years after racially segregated schools became illegal under Brown v. Board of Education. Southern states had done nothing to integrate schools, and Black schools were even being closed down. After a poll taken in 1959, 78 percent of white parents voted to continue segregated schools, and the Orleans Parish School Board declared it would only consider the opinions of the whites.
White resistance was also shown when the U.S. District Court finally forced the school board to apply integration. The protesters blocked tax money and paychecks going to integrated schools, and school boards even shut down. In addition, the members of the Orleans Parish School Board who had voted for integration were fired on the morning of November 16, and the White Citizens Council marched to the school board shouting, “two, four, six, eight, we don’t want to integrate.” These examples show the discontent of society and the state government when the schools were integrated in 1960.
Although the majority of white society protested against integration, there were some who supported the African-Americans’ cause. For example, in 1960, a group of white women led by Rosa Keller and Gladys Kahn formed a protest assembly called Save Our Schools (SOS) to keep schools open under desegregation. This party grew up to 1,500 members, and effectively produced newsletters, gained support of local officials, and advertised in all parts of the media to encourage integration.
On November 14, 1960, Leona Tate, Gail Etienne and Tessie Prevost, along with Ruby Bridges, were escorted by federal marshals to be the first African Americans to attend formerly white-only schools in New Orleans.
November 14, 2010 marked the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of public schools in New Orleans. The Plessy & Ferguson Foundation, the Crescent City Peace Alliance, the Leona Tate Foundation for Change, the Institute for Civil Rights, and the Social Justice Committee joined with the community to honor the families of the marshals who escorted the girls, along with Leona Tate, Gail Etienne and Tessie Prevost themselves.
The Leona Tate Foundation for Change and the Plessy & Ferguson Foundation are planning to create a memorial site to remember the brave actions of the McDonogh Three. A plaque was erected on November 14, 2010. They hope to inspire future generations and want to honor their past, which had such a significant impact on schools and society in New Orleans today.
Bridges, now Ruby Bridges Hall, still lives in New Orleans with her husband, Malcolm Hall, and their four sons. After graduating from a desegregated high school, she worked as a travel agent for 15 years and later became a full-time parent. She is now chair of the Ruby Bridges Foundation, which she formed in 1999 to promote “the values of tolerance, respect, and appreciation of all differences.” Describing the mission of the group, she says, “racism is a grown-up disease and we must stop using our children to spread it.”
On January 8, 2001, Bridges was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Bill Clinton.
The Alameda Unified School District in California named a new elementary school for Bridges in October 2006, and issued a proclamation in her honor. The following month, she was honored as a “Hero Against Racism” at the 12th annual Anti-Defamation League “Concert Against Hate” with the national Symphony Orchestra, held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
On May 19, 2012, Bridges received an honorary degree from Tulane University at the annual graduation ceremony at the Superdome.
In 2014, a statue of Bridges was unveiled in the courtyard of William Frantz Elementary School.
This article originally published in the February 24, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
