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Our Mission

The Leona Tate Foundation for Change’s mission is to promote, improve and enhance racial equality through various avenues of education. To empower and enrich our communities from a spiritual, multicultural, economical, historical and social perspective. The Foundation will strive to educate the public, in particular the younger generation regarding the lessons of the civil rights movement and its impact on human rights efforts throughout the world. To foster sustainability, job creation and economic dev…

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Leona Tate

On November 14, 1960, at the age of six, Leona Tate entered into the civil rights movement when she and two other African-American girls integrated McDonogh No. 19 Elementary School. For Leona and many others in the city, this day played a pivotal role in the pursuit to build a unified New Orleans. In the 50 years following, there remains much to be done to improve equal access and opportunities for all in this area. It is widely recognized that the New Orleans public school system is the lowest performing school distric…

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The McDonogh 3

A half-century ago, first-graders Leona Tate, Tessie Prevost and Gail Etienne had McDonogh 19 to themselves for an entire year, thanks to a white boycott. An unnamed white boy briefly broke the boycott in January 1961, but left once protesters descended upon the Walgreen’s that employed his father, John Thompson. Despite the hostile crowds that gathered outside and the brown paper that covered classroom windows for their safety, the building was a sanctuary, the women told The Times-Picayune in a 2004 int…

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New Life for McDonogh #19

New Life for New Orleans School and Civil Rights Landmark? There’s new hope for an abandoned New Orleans school that was one of the first to be integrated in the Deep South during the Civil Rights Era. The Leona Tate Foundation for Change, which incorporates tomorrow, will raise money to renovate the McDonogh No. 19 Elementary School in the Ninth Ward as “a Civil Rights museum that can attract people from all over the nation,” says Rev. John Moore, foundation chair. The 1929 structure (now called t…

The Mission

The Leona Tate Foundation for Change’s (LTFC) mission is to promote, improve and enhance racial equality through various avenues of education. To empower and enrich our communities from a spiritual, multicultural, economical, historical and social perspective. The foundation will strive to educate the public, in particular the younger generation regarding the lessons of the civil rights movement and its impact on human rights efforts throughout the world. To foster sustainability, job creation and economic development in order to accelerate the re-population of the Lower Ninth Ward and surrounding communities. This will be accomplished through the process of community meetings, workshops and public forums. Other objectives will be to preserve and conserve historical elements such as McDonogh No 19 Elementary School and allow them to be functional, to be utilized and to re-energize the local and global communities as well. These endeavors will advance cultural literacy, citizen involvement and the appreciation regarding their significance.