Please join representatives from the Leona Tate Foundation for Change, Alembic Community Development and CDW Services for a discussion and virtual walk-through of the redevelopment of the historic McDonogh 19 elementary school and cafeteria buildings, located at 5909 St Claude Avenue in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward, into the Tate, Etienne & Prevost (TEP) Center.

The TEP Center will include: an interpretive center operated by LTFC dedicated to teaching the history of the school desegregation experience and other significant components of New Orleans' 1960s Civil Rights Movement; an anti-racism training center and educational space operated by the People's Institute for Survival & Beyond that builds on its long history of organizing and conducting anti-racism trainings around the world; and 25 units of affordable senior apartments for households earning less than 30% and 60% of the area median income. The development, which is owned by a 50-50 partnership between LTFC and Alembic, closed in January 2020 on the property acquisition and $15.5 million of tax credit financing leveraged with additional public and private sources. Construction is scheduled for completion in Q2 2021.

The 1929 historic property, totaling 39,000 square feet on a 1.3-acre full city block, was one of the initial two schools integrated across the Deep South. On November 14th, 1960, six years after separate black and white schools were ruled unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education, six-year old Leona Tate, Gail Etienne and Tessie Prevost were escorted by Federal Marshals through a crowd of shouting protesters to attend McDonogh 19, becoming the first African Americans along with Ruby Bridges to attend formerly white-only schools in Louisiana. The three young girls attended class alone – and under the protection of United States Marshals – in an otherwise empty building for a year and a half while their white peers and neighbors protested and moved to parochial and private schools elsewhere.