SEEK MUSEUM

McDonough 19 and William Frantz Elementary Schools

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward was once home to McDonough 19 Elementary School, the fiery site of the 1960s integration struggle when three first-graders, Leona Tate, Gail Etienne and Tessie Prevost, helped desegregate their school. Although this was years after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, many Southern schools had resisted the change. As with most other school integration struggles during the Civil Rights Movement, racists fiercely opposed it. When Tate, Etienne and Prevost first attempted to enter the school, they were heckled and spit on by white protestors. Federal troops were called in as violence grew too intense for the 6-year-olds. On their first day, the girls spent most of their time in the principal’s office before being escorted and confined to a single classroom for the entirety of the school year.

But the story of the McDonogh Three doesn’t end there. After the school building sat vacant for years, Leona Tate’s foundation raised enough money to purchase the facility. Today, the TEP Center is a cornerstone of the Lower 9th Ward community. The mixed-use building provides senior affordable housing, spaces for community groups and a living museum documenting the visual and oral histories of those who lived in the community during the civil rights era through postHurricane Katrina.

Tremaine Knighten-Riley, program director, said The TEP Center recently completed a $16.2 million renovation of historic McDonough 19.

“When folks come, they are initially immersed into the feeling of what Leona, Gail and Tessie experienced,” Knighten-Riley said. Visitors walk up the 18 steps and into the principal’s office exhibit before retracing the student’s efforts from the morning of the integration attempt to their isolating classroom experience on a guided tour that transports visitors back to that time.

A few minutes around the corner was William Frantz Elementary school, where another 6-year-old, Ruby Bridges, integrated into her school as its first Black student. Today, the building is used as a charter school, Akili Academy. Bridges’ legacy is preserved with a courtyard statue and a classroom restored to its original design, available for touring. Visitors wanting to experience the facility should contact the school directly to book a private tour.

TEPCENTER.ORG

AKILIACADEMY.ORG

MCDONOUGH 19 & WILLIAM FRANTZ

Elementary Schools

Dorchester Academy

MIDWAY, GEORGIA

Located on the Georgia coast, Midway’s Dorchester Academy was a pillar of Black education during the civil rights movement. Now a museum, it began as a one-room schoolhouse and eventually became a key meeting place for 1960s civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy. Leaders strategized, planned and trained freely at the academy, which also served an integral part in educating Black adults. It’s here that educator Septima Clark helped busloads of adults learn how to read, write and do the math needed to help them pass anti-Black voter registration quizzes. Dorchester also became a safe haven for activists to let their hair down and rest from their tireless work.