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KNOW DUMB QUESTIONS FT LEONA TATE
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We sit with civil rights pioneer Leona Tate, who integrated a New Orleans elementary school at six years old and watched the entire building empty by afternoon. We explore how that experience informs today’s fights over school choice, safety, equity, and historical truth.
What's up, what's up, what's up, what's up? Greetings from Harlem, USA. Very excited to uh join you this evening. As you know, we don't do no-dumb questions every uh week because we want to make sure that when we do have opportunity to have conversations, we have conversations with interesting people, people who are making an impact on the world to me and have changed the way in which we exist. So tonight is no different. Um want to introduce to some of you and uh reintroduce to others a a real trail blazer, uh someone who has truly set ablaze the conversation about education at a time when doing so could cost you your life. So I know that our guests will be joining us soon, but I I do need to take a couple moments to to talk to you about just how challenging it is to educate uh, especially children of color, in times such as these. Um you have on we'll call it the left. People working to maintain the status quo, and then those people on the right who at times seem like they're working to open up opportunity, but when you look at some of the decisions that they're making, they are not the same. Hello, Dr. Tate. Hi, how are you? I am having the time of my life. I genuinely am. Uh it is it's an honor to meet you. It's an honor to meet you. You too. You know, I want to jump right into it because your story on the one hand is one that we shouldn't have much relevance to today. It should be history, like the Model T or 57 Chevy, right? Like you look at them and you think, oh, that was nice for then, but now we've come so far. Would you say we've come so far from your story?
SPEAKER_01:We haven't come far enough. Um if we don't when I say we, I mean me, my team, anybody that's closely involved, doesn't do anything to communicate it to others, then you don't hear about it.
SPEAKER_00:So let's talk about it. Um many people know about integration of schools, meaning taking typically black children and sending them to at the time what would have been white schools. And many people know about uh figures such as Ruby Bridges. But Ruby Bridges, while so important to the work we do, she is but one of the many little girls who walked out of their door and entered into pure chaos and hell. Um can you tell us your story?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I my story is I don't I don't know, it's maybe a little different, but it was it was chaos, trust me. But I didn't pick up on the chaos as a six-year-old. Um I woke up that morning and you would have thought it was a holiday. We had family and friends there, and just I guess supporting my parents. Um and everybody seemed to be pretty, pretty happy. Uh just going about their day and happy day. And then a black car pulled up in front of the door. And um my household got real quiet. We um silence today because it just was sudden. It was a it was a sudden silence, and so I didn't it wasn't a silence that would make me afraid, but I was curious. I was curious of what was going on. So the gentleman walked up to the door, it was a white lad on, and my mother and I approached the door, and I remember her telling me, giving me my my orders of what to do and what not to do when I get in the car. Don't sit sit to the back of the seat, don't put your face to the window. And um he brought us to the car, we got in. And for me to school, knowing I was going to school, was a luxury because I was walking eleven blocks where this school was in my in my neighborhood, you know, and um so we took the short ride and from the weird down to 19 elementary school. Now that was a school I would see in the community, but I um had no understanding of why I didn't go there, but I would always see it. And um, when we approached the front of the building, I mean there were people everywhere. I mean, just masses of people. I didn't pick up on these all the people being white. I didn't pick up on that. I could hear the noise, I could hear people yelling, I couldn't make out what they were saying, I could see police on horseback holding the crowd back.
SPEAKER_00:Um and you're six years old.
SPEAKER_01:Six years old from New Orleans. I'm thinking the parade's coming because that's that's what I could only relate it to, you know. And and then and I was looking forward to that. And um, I wanted to know why. I I asked my mother why I had to go to school on Mortigral, and everybody else was watching the parade, and she said it's not Mordi Grove. And um, so we did get to enter the building safely. Um we um approached the steps, we walked up the front of the steps to the building and approached the principal's office. So we were asked to take a seat. By that time, all three cars were there because it was three of us at McDonald's 19. It was myself, Gil Etienne, and Tessie Prevost. And um we were asked to take a seat on a bench that was outside the principal's office. So we did, you know, and we sat there quite some time. It took them practically half the day to even decide to places in the classroom. And when we finally got placed in the classroom, well, it took us some time. I guess the three of us became friends through that time period because we began playing on the tiles of the floor outside the principal's office, I guess, being bored of waiting and um and really anxious because we I had I was excited about going to a new school because I hated my old school. So I did, we did finally get placed in the classroom, and the class was full of students. And I can remember trying to speak to her. It was a little white girl, and um it was like I was invisible with Dr. Perry. It was like she didn't, she it was like she didn't even hear me, she didn't see me, she didn't look my way, she didn't make any kind of motions at all. But a few minutes later, the parents just started coming in and pulling their kids out. Um at the end of the school day, we were alone. We were we were alone in that building for a year and a half.
SPEAKER_00:I don't think people understand maybe what you mean when you say that you were alone in that building in a year and a half. This is a school filled with children. Filled with children, and within weeks, every parent who was sending their child to that school who wasn't black removed their children.
SPEAKER_01:Within hours, about three o'clock, they were all gone. There were two brothers I understood that was there till the end of the week. Their father worked at a pharmacy that was in the neighborhood, but they had to leave because they were threatened, and but we never saw them. We they were in another part of the building. But we were alone in that entire three-story building for a year and a half when you think about you know when you think about that today, right?
SPEAKER_00:You have children and grandchildren. What would it take for you to pull your children out of a school?
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. I don't I don't I don't I don't even know if I could even think about how to do something, you know, knowing that that's where I wanted to go to school, um regardless of this, as long as it wasn't a dangerous situation, I don't think I would have ever thought to pull them out, you know. And I really don't think it we caused any danger.
SPEAKER_00:So you were just three little black girls, six years old, who because your parents decided that they wanted something better for you, happily sat in a black car um with Marshalls, thinking that you were getting prettied up to go to your new school, only to have the entire school leave. The entire school did by the end of the day.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, they were.
SPEAKER_00:What does that do to a little girl and her two friends to watch all these children vacate a three-story building, a three-story school in hours?
SPEAKER_01:It was a little baffling to us um because we really was confused, um, not really understanding what was really going on. Um but I was really thinking, well, hey, they're really going to watch the parade. Where is this parade? You know, we in this building, we can't go out, you know. And I was so naive in a New Orleans, that's the only thing I could, you know, relate it to. But um I soon found out that was not the case.
SPEAKER_00:This was 71 years ago.
SPEAKER_01:65.
SPEAKER_00:65, I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, right. I I should do my math better. I should do my math. I'm sorry, 65, my bad. You are correct. 65 years ago. Sorry. This is 65 years ago. Yes. You now well in between that time, you've had the opportunity, you have had the opportunity to talk to your parents. As you got older, did did you ask them about their decision to pull you out of your neighborhood school and send you, well, I don't know the first one wasn't your neighborhood school, it was your segregated school, and to put you in your neighborhood school. Did you ever ask to talk to them about their decisions?
SPEAKER_01:Not real, not maybe not until I was an adult, because at that time I tell everybody, you know, getting groundful conversation back in those days, you know, you know, they had a lot of support. They had um just just the a village surrounding them that to support them, you know. So the decision was was maybe hard, but it was maybe hard for my dad um because of where he worked. He was a little bit of he worked in St. Bernard Parish, where a lot of the protesters came from. So his identity was held back.
SPEAKER_00:The white protesters.
SPEAKER_01:Right, exactly. Where they came from. So he was his identity was held back for a long time. But my mother was very, I tell anybody, if I had an ounce of courage, she had she she had I'd be dangerous because she was steadfast and she was not turning back. And and all I can remember her always saying was that she paid her taxes like anybody else, and and and and she felt like it that was the best place for me to be. That's where she wanted me.
SPEAKER_00:You know. What does it take to make sense of the reaction of a community who wanted to deny you education so badly that they were prepared to remove their own children from the school. What does it take to overcome that?
SPEAKER_01:A lot of press. I don't know. You're not born with that type of anger, you're not born with that type of racism. Um why, I don't know. These, you know, they the children were in school and apparently they were prepped because the reaction that I got from the little girl that I did try to talk talk to made me uh realize later on that she was told not to do that, you know, and um I don't know. It's just just your upbringing. It's it's just it's just it's just a whole thing.
SPEAKER_00:Well, how how deep must the hate have been towards I don't know if it was you, I don't even know that they knew you, but towards black people that they were prepared to pull. I gotta keep going to this. I I run schools and uh they're constantly trying to stop me from opening schools, educating black kids. So it's just it's what I do on a on a Thursday. So it ain't, you know, it it's it's been my entire career. But this is what I chose, right? There's no nobody crying for me. Your mother and father just wanted something better for you. Exactly. What do you say to those mothers and fathers who are making the decisions today to send their children far away, whether it be a private school or a neighborhood school choice program or a charter school or a magnet school or an art school or whatever? But they're sending them into what could essentially be very segregated communities, right?
SPEAKER_02:Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:What do you want them to know about that their children are likely to confront while away from home?
SPEAKER_01:Today, you know, children have their own minds. Um I'm sure they're they're raising them to know to do the right thing. And um is that we were taught one way, and I don't think we can do that with children today. It's it's just different with kids. Um, but knowing that they're going, I would have to know if if it was my child and I was sending them somewhere like that, it would have I would have to know that they're gonna be safe. But at least if it's the right environment for them, and I think that's where they should acquire the best education, I'm gonna send them. I'm gonna send them.
SPEAKER_00:That's an interesting uh uh response because I would imagine that many people would think that you who were someone who to integrate uh is it in the ninth ward down in New Orleans? Is that what it was? And forgive me. Uh all I know about New Orleans is how much I love it and uh and and how I have to lower ninth ward, that's and how I have to almost fast a week before I get there because y'all don't know portion control and everybody there can cook. I I think everybody who has hands can cook in New Orleans, but that's just my my prejudice about my deep love for New Orleans. But as someone who grew up there, I would imagine that many would think that you would not be in favor of sending a child to a likely all-white environment. But in your mind, I hear you saying that if it's best for them, then it's best for them.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Is that how you still feel?
SPEAKER_01:I still actually I certainly do, and I uh I would do it again. If it if that would have happened again, I would have to do it with because I did it for 12 years. So so those reactions were were was something natural to me. I was normal, that was normal to me. But um I may do things a little bit differently, make sure my child's safe. Um but it doesn't matter anymore what color skin sits next to you, just as long as they're in that that that that right environment, the right, you know, getting the right education. You know, some children just are not placed where they need to be in, and and that is not a good thing, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Can you talk about that? Because I I um I'm interested in hearing you you sound to me like you're taking in an even more nuanced approach. You're saying it doesn't matter if they go to school with all white kids or all black kids, but if they're in the right kind of school for them. Is that what I hear you saying?
SPEAKER_01:For them. Exactly. Exactly. If they're in and they are where they're gonna get the type of education that they need, then that's all that's important. You know, um, they just need to stay focused on what they want, they need to do, and and and like I was told, if anybody says anything bad to you, that's how I was trained, let it go in one year and come out the other. They gotta stop fighting with their hands, they gotta start fighting with them brain. And it's it's it's it's hard to to train a child like that today because of the environment that we're in sometimes. But um we um we um we just have to just make sure our children are where they're supposed to be to be. And um it doesn't matter if it's an all-white school or all Mexican school or what, if that's where they need to be, that's that's what's important to me.
SPEAKER_00:You clearly have been successful in school. They don't typically give these doctorates out. So can you talk more about your career? We know how you started as a six-year-old, someone who was integrating the lower ninth ward in New Orleans as a six-year-old. But that continued, right? You you can talk, can you talk about the rest of your academic career and then how that shaped where you went to college and and what you do now?
SPEAKER_01:I um, well, schools, the integration in New Orleans progressed as we progressed the grade. Um, you either had to be in the same grade we were in or lower. You couldn't be in a grade higher than us until we reached 10th grade. So um my transfer to third grade was another all-white school that we had to endure a lot because we didn't have the marshals or the police protection anymore. Um, we faced a lot of racism in third grade. Um, but you had to go to the school where you lived, it had to be in the district where you lived. After third grade, there's some of my family moved. So I joined Ruby at at William Friend School in fourth grade.
SPEAKER_00:Ruby being Ruby Bridges.
SPEAKER_01:Ruby Ruby Bridges, right.
SPEAKER_00:So um I don't want people to pause for a second. Dr. Tate's talking about Ruby Bridges. You remember Ruby Bridges uh and uh you know her story. Dr. Tate is saying that she too, she and Ruby were physically in the same school. So I want to just pause. Some people have just joined us late, so I want them to understand that I'm talking to an actual living icon uh in uh the civil rights movement. And and I want people to understand that so many times when you hear people today talking about that was the past, they're talking about it as if it was ancient history. We are talking to an individual who lived through it and is living through it today. And so it's not that long ago. You know, maybe so many of her teachers that she grew up with are no longer alive, but they have kids and grandkids who are very much alive, and and communities who supported that behavior, uh, who are still very much alive.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah, exactly. And I was at France until we finished sixth grade, and we moved on to a junior high school. It was Joseph Cohn's K-O-H-N, not Cohen, Cohn Junior High School. We faced the same thing there. It was always this racial division, um, a lot of tension, a lot of fighting. As we got older, it just got worse. Um but once we left junior high school and went to senior high school, which was Francis T. Nichols, which mascot was rebels and they honored a Confederate flag, it it really got bad. Um but once we entered 10.
SPEAKER_00:Can I just ask you if it's not too much to when you say it really got bad, uh, can you talk about what it meant for you to be going to the to the high school where they honored uh the Confederate uh uh uh flag? And what are some of the experience that you had as a high school student that made you say after the marshals, after everybody left your school, but this really got bad. What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, uh all day you see fighting, um, black and whites fighting. Um it it it means police around all the time. Um it was just it was so racially divided till it was really sad. Um it was just chaotic. It was cake chaos every day, all day. I you could look out of a window and see gangs just fighting out in the street. It was just that bad. I went to school one morning and everybody used to meet in the cafeteria, and I opened the door, and all you could see was chairs flying, people fighting. It was it was terrible. Then when I turned around, the police was coming in the building on horseback. It was it was really, really bad. And then it got bad, it got even worse in 11th grade because we asked to have the mascot changed. So that caused a lot of more fighting, a lot more fighting. It caused it really got the politicians involved at that point, and um but it did get changed uh by 11th grade. The mascot got changed. So it's Bobcats till today. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So you then went where to college?
SPEAKER_01:I didn't go to academic college, but at that time, Dr. Perrin, be honest with you, I was uh overwhelmed. I had had a little bit of enough, I would say.
SPEAKER_00:I could you earned it.
SPEAKER_01:I I went to business college in San Antonio, Texas. I got married and my husband was in the military. I went to college in San Antonio.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, and then what did you do?
SPEAKER_01:I um did some staffing for this company, for a lumber company. And then I was only there two years, and I came back home during when we had the bus strike in New Orleans. And I got I started working at the telephone company at that time, and I was there for years. I was there like 13 years, and then diversity happened. That's when South Central Bell split from AT. Well, from those South Central Bell South, yeah, they split. And um my office went to ATT, so um I was there until that time until they closed it down, and then I was with I just took severance and and came home for a while. Then I started working at the post office, and I was there quite a few years, and then I resigned to um do some things on my own. Um so I just was working for med doing some medical stuff during during that time, and I don't know, it was just doing different things.
SPEAKER_00:Today the educational landscape has changed. There are opportunities for children to attend different types of schools: magnet schools, charter schools, neighborhood schools, private schools, home schools, micro schools, online schools, virtual schools. Do you feel that the changes that are being made are um an example of advancement as uh as your fight began?
SPEAKER_01:Wow, you're asking me that's that's the system here is just so different. It's just so bad from I mean, if if when I say I want a child in the right setting, if we if they can get in the setting where they need to be, and when I say if they can get there, I mean just that, because the way the system is set up to apply to get in the school, it is so is it makes it very hard for not only the student, it makes it very hard for the parents. But um this system wasn't it wasn't built to educate us. Not at all.
SPEAKER_00:What do you mean by that? I I I would say I completely agree with you, but I want to make sure I I you and I I agree with you that as far as I mean we're our children are in schools, but are they in the right schools?
SPEAKER_01:I get to visit a lot of schools, you know. Some of our schools are are are wonderful, are wonderful, but some of our schools need help. We don't have that buddy system anymore where we can reach out and get that help. Everybody's chartered, they're very independent. And we just we just don't have that that that that type of system anymore. And it's it's it it's it it hurts. It hurts for a lot of families to have to go through that because they used to be in their community, going to school where maybe your brothers or your sisters went to. That don't happen anymore. A lot of times you can't you can't do that. Um you don't have that generational, you know, bond going to the same school or the same university or somewhere that your family members may have gone, and you have been thinking as a child that that's where you would be. But it don't, it's not like that anymore. It's just it's just different. I hate to even think about it.
SPEAKER_00:If you if you were the commissioner of education and you had the opportunity to design a school system to meet the needs of today's children, knowing what you know as somebody who integrated the lower ninth ward in New Orleans, what how would you divise that school system? What would it have?
SPEAKER_01:I guess I'm old school, and um we'd have to go back to using a lot of our brains and all this new technology. Um we'd have to go back to the books. A lot of our schools don't use books. Uh most of them don't. Um and making sure it's it's well most of the is the school is not the thing. It's the who's who's teaching in the schools is is a is the main thing too. You know, we gotta make sure we have the right teachers. Um, I'm not saying integration for us was the right thing because we were well prepared to go to a white school. You know, and we were well prepared to.
SPEAKER_00:Can you speak on that? Because I I don't I don't want to jump over that. I really don't want to uh jump over that. Uh you you went.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Right. We were very well prepared. I can remember just the even the year before we even got into McDonald's 19, the things that was changing in our lives. know doing extra homework doing things on with my teacher on the weekend that I hadn't been doing. We were very well prepared by those black teachers to go there.
SPEAKER_00:You know you are now you have a foundation can you talk about the work that you're doing now?
SPEAKER_01:Well it's we started the foundation to acquire the um McDonough 19th school building and we did in um 21 2021 and um the building is there to educate those that um still have a struggling with with racism to me um and it's not there that we have it in in writing or in the book we're there that to just have those discussions um we need to just find a way to talk about it because I feel like all the money in the world is not going to cure racism. We have to have those discussions we welcome those that still have some of those ill feelings back in those days or family members that had those feelings let's come and let's let's talk about this and maybe we can reach a better point of because you've done that there are people who were featured there are people who were screaming at you as a little girl who have come to you for forgiveness. Is that fair to say well not yet we're hoping that will happen but I have people have come to me that have seen what we have gone through because we showed them a film of those days and and they apologize and they're not those people you know they you know they just just feel sorry for the you know they're white but I mean they just have a have this I guess it it's it's it's an ill feeling for them you know to to realize that somebody in your race would do things like that and they tell you that you know and it's not that um we're trying to show throw shade or make anybody feel uncomfortable we just want to understand what started this you're not born with this so what what what what created this you know and I'm sure it's way back slavery days you know those type things anger you but um why is that still a problem you know that that this should have been over a long time ago should have been over a long time if you could talk to black parents today uh trying to decide how to educate their children what would be some advice that you give to them make sure as I said make sure they they're in the right setting um if you see there's a problem and you don't know how to fix the problem I don't know if we're the perfect people to come talk to or at least come ask and and and maybe we can guide them in the right in the right place but um but you have to be involved with your children you just can't send them off to school and and and and leave it on the teachers today really you know and in fact it wasn't that way in the past but but you have to be involved you have to be involved and I know sometimes to get involved in the school system that it's hard because you probably got to go way on the other side of town from where you live to do that. But still you have to be involved you the teachers and your parents have to be in some sort of connection to have a what would you say to the politicians there are those who want to make sure that the only schools that we get to go to are the schools in our neighborhood.
SPEAKER_00:They don't want us to go to the right kind of school they want us to go to the school that is in the neighborhood because that one is the place that employs the most people what would you say to the politicians?
SPEAKER_01:To be fair learn what it takes to be fair we all we asked for was the same resources and the same materials. Make sure all schools are are set up where they get the same resources, the same materials.
SPEAKER_00:Just be fair about it you have had a lifetime thus far to reflect upon an experience that started when you were six years old when you thought you were going to a parade when in fact you were going to a school and in that school by the afternoon every single child was pulled from the school and sent somewhere else you went on through elementary and middle and ultimately high school where you found yourself facing pure unadulterated racism what are some of the lessons that have come to you as you reflect on your life as a civil rights icon and I mean what I'm saying we know about the Andy Young's well ambassador Young I don't want to we ain't friends so Ambassador Young we know about the Dr. King you know about the Malcolm X we know about so many of the uh sisters who have been leaders we know about Ruben Bridges we know about all these but as a living civil rights icon what are some of the lessons that you want us who honestly wake up every day and and if I could just be frank can't I can't believe I'm still fighting the fight that you your mother fought your mother and father fought I I I mean it really does um it it it it it does something to me it it it breaks my heart to think that when we should be talking about how to educate children and looking at the best techniques and and studying what the research shows us that we're still stuck in this place where black children don't get seen as human beings it it it's not why I got into this thing. So for me it's I'm in a particular place especially on a day like today when I'm dealing with foolishness. But as someone who is a civil rights icon what are some of the lessons that you want us to take from your life thus far leave hate out of it.
SPEAKER_01:I've never hated can you talk about how to do that because I I am not going to sit here and tell you that I'm very good at that right about now you you have to leave you just got to be trained that way you know we were we were brought up not to hate uh take anything like that serious um after all they did to you you don't hate him no I think we need to have that conversation is and there's really one little boy that I really want to talk to one little boy but I'm sure well he's an older boy than me because he was older than me but because he's spitting my hair and I remember that till today but I would really want to know what his feelings are today. I really do I really do I um you know just just to tell parents and just you know they can't show that you can't you can't if they see if they see that anger if they see that hatred that's what they're gonna come up with. In today's education space many people who are in charge of public education want to erase your story from what's being taught because they feel like it happened to get over it what do you have to say to those people who want to remove your story and your classmates story and Ruby Bridges story from the uh from what we teach our children just as important is it for them to erase it I want to know why is it so important to them why they want to erase it what what's what's the answer to the why um why are you not wanting to talk about this? Why don't you want to share these stories with the younger students um I I share my story and I'm gonna continue sharing it because it's my story and I think the children need to know they need to understand how hard it was for people to go to school to get a decent education to have a textbook they need to know that and I and I those that we do come across and that do come to visit us seem to come out they appreciate it a little better and and and and if if that's what it takes for them to understand what school is about we're gonna tell their story. Why was school so important?
SPEAKER_00:I mean of all the things your mother and father could have done why I mean why why why mess around with the system?
SPEAKER_01:Just why not just leave you in in the school that you were in why why put you in a school where there was nothing but white children and their parents clearly openly hated you why school why was school so important to your family probably because of the materials that we had and the and the resources that the school had I I I I can remember the difference in what I left and what I went to I can remember you know we had used textbooks torn out pages I can remember that you know get to the new school and and you're the first name in the book.
SPEAKER_00:A lot of folks don't know that they used to write your name in the top in the book you may I might remember that but there's people who don't realize that in a textbook there's a section that says your name and you work your way down and so you're saying your name in the new school wasn't was it was it in the top of the book. Okay that's fair. That's fair. So now that we have a time where education remains a challenge for many people depending upon where they live right that everyone is not receiving the same education even if they go to the same school. Can you talk about that now before the issue was interschool segregation meaning from uh you know John Deere Elementary in the suburbs to Jackie Robinson uh elementary in an urban setting now you got two kids a black child and a white child at John Deere but the black child is not receiving a better education than they would have if they just stayed at Jackie Robinson. Can you talk about do you still see race having an impact on the way children are taught today?
SPEAKER_01:I kind of kind of would blame some of that too you know you you can tell if your child's learning or or coming home with materials that you know you can keep them on the right track but and then you know then then we can figure out if it's a racism problem. Or is just it is it just a teacher problem or is a racism problem. You know um and it may be a racism problem but I would have to make sure that that because they're not receiving the right education it's because this teacher don't want to teach them.
SPEAKER_00:Fair fair when you invite people to the uh school that you formerly attended and you integrated and you're doing these sessions what is their typical reaction to your story let me tell you how it works when they come to visit me visit the school the center they're given a tour of the building just as the three of us entered the building they go up to the principal's office and they're told about what happened in that area then they're brought downstairs to where the the um before they come to the first grade classroom though they're brought into a room where they watch a film of that of those days and the film is in black and white so of course they a lot of children think this happened during slavery they don't realize that it's right here in their present time and um and after the film goes off then I come in the room and they think and it's just that that's my motivation because when I walk in a room they're just too shocked to see me you know just like they don't believe it you know you know it you can hear the sighs in the room when when when that happened you know and and but the questions are what's really important they really are interested then they are really interested then my son's wife and I went to the African American History Museum and we were very very fortunate I don't know why I was given this opportunity but we were very very fortunate to receive a curated tour um before the actual day before they opened to the general public and as we were walking we we walked with Ruby Bridges and I'm I'm coming back to your questions for for a moment in a moment my sons who were both um I don't think the oldest was even in in high school yet so elementary and middle school and when they saw Ruby Bridges it was like they saw a rock star which tripped me out because I didn't know my sons to to care that much about that stuff. You know I spent so much time trying to tell them these things that I don't know that I've ever talked to them about Ruby Bridges or you or any of the other folks who uh were little kids and I remember one of them saying to me that's Ruby Bridges A, she can hear you so you're not very good at whispering and B, yes, that's her and you know who she is like yes she's the little girl like that's really her and then I pointing to her on the wall like look that's her and we're walking through because the she my wife's uh sons and I walk through with a very very knowledgeable and thoughtful uh actually she's one of the curators of many of the exhibits in there again I don't want to make too much of what it was I just I'm saying I it was fortunate that I had the time to be there with her and I'm saying I experienced with my sons them meeting someone who is a civil rights icon. Talk about and they had questions for her I mean a couple times like you know Miss Bridges is walking through two like she's looking at the museum two you gotta let her walk through and then maybe she'll talk to you afterwards tell us about some of the questions that they ask you the little kids about your life because they see the little girl yes and they see themselves maybe yeah oh wow their questions those little ones are the ones they will question you to death um well they want to know it all they want to know um what are you afraid um um what are you um I don't know it's just so many it's so many they even want to know how old you are now and and I always tell them to do the math and um they want to know um did I know Ruby Bridges and and um they always asked me that and um I told them yes and um because they just can't put the the two stories together you know it's hard for them to put the two stories together even though they were the same day the same time it was just that she lived in the upper night world we lived in the lower night world and and they all see I can't pinpoint anything off the top of my head but they asked you all kind of questions um what what we had for lunch and things like that what was our teacher like and and um things like that um we had an excellent first grade teacher she was very protective very motherly you know um I don't know it's a lot it would be a lot it's a lot but it's always the it's always the younger ones yeah they they're the most courageous and sorry I'm still at one of our schools so the children walking by so forgive me if you see me waving this child that child and his mother just walk by um you know not because you asked for it but because there's a there's an honest feeling that I'm having even as I'm talking to you where I almost feel like I I need to apologize and I'll tell you specifically why I hoped that we would be further along today uh I had hoped when we started our first school 20 years ago that our success with educating black and Latin children and poor children I had hoped that that that would be what warmed the hearts of those people who are both allies and adversaries because the allies ain't no better at treating our kids well than the adversaries they're really not there really is no market difference between the two but in talking to you and and and meeting uh Miss Bridget as well I feel like I I wonder sometimes if you wonder for what like I did all this for what y'all still fighting the same fight so what if I just stayed in my lower ninth board school and just went to school with the kids I was cool with like what would my life be like would I have gotten tired of school if I hadn't had to fight for every single thing with horsebacked police officers so there's a there's a part of me that feels a a sense of dread sadness frustration anger because I feel like wow y'all pay so much and I'm in Harlem right now still fighting at 7 o'clock on a on a Thursday still fighting for something that y'all fought for 65 years ago. So I I want to you know from you know from those of us who are out here doing the work I do want to apologize that we have not we've not gotten this further I mean y'all got it so much further than we did and we haven't been able to move that uh so super bummed about that and and really wish that we had we had we had honored you better uh because you deserve that uh your life was put in danger your actual life as a child was put in danger they don't put people in the back of cop cars to take them to school because they just ain't got nothing else to do that day. The president of the United States doesn't get involved because you know he was free that day. So on behalf of all of those who who still out here in the trenches um busting our behinds to open up schools and open up doors for for black and light children the fact that we still have to do it after you already did it just feels just feels wrong. That's that's how I feel but how do you feel seeing that do you do you feel like there's progress or do you feel like this is is glacial or incremental?
SPEAKER_01:Do you feel like it's big how would you measure where we are today versus where we were where you were as a six year old I'm gonna be honest with you it was a it was a time in my life where I didn't talk about it. I just wouldn't say a word about it it was I was like that for years because nobody else was talking about it. It didn't seem to matter you know and I guess after I became a parent and put my kids in school I started seeing where um you know I didn't I'm gonna be honest my children didn't know who I was for years. Because I just wanted their lives to be normal. I didn't have a normal childhood. And um and it was something that I really couldn't explain to them at that time you know and um but it it for for me it was many times even even during the process of us trying to acquire the building there was many days I could say let's let it go let it go let it go but I knew it was so important because I see our kids feel and I see them just just just angry for no reasons at all and and just on a down spiral you know instead of going up they were going down and I I just felt like well hey but then when I saw President Obama get elected I said well it must be my time to talk because I never thought I would see this in my lifetime you know so it it was time to to get this story out.
SPEAKER_00:It was time how would you measure progress from when your mother and father put you in that black car driven by the marshals to school to today in October 2025 how would you measure the progress in some some some cases there's no progress in some cases there are progress you know um we have very good schools and then we have schools that that could use some more help you know and and I'm sure resources has a lot to do with that um but um I don't know it's I guess it's the grading system of of the schools too that has a lot to to make it you know seem like well it's it's not progressing but we need to see if they have something to work with you know to to to get the kids to progress but um I don't know it's that's a tricky question because some some of our schools are very well very well but we have a lot a lot that needs a lot of help they need a lot of help if you wanted to say something to the uh six year old you 65 years ago integrating uh the lower ninth ward in Orleans what would you say to her after she just had this boy spit in her hair I guess the same thing my parents did for me washed my hair and um just made them at least make my child feel a little uh any child who would have to go through anything like that feel a little comfortable and let them know that you're gonna take that fall let them know that you're gonna take on that responsibility and you will you will take care of that and for them to continue on doing what they're doing and um my two favorite words is to stay focused as we come to a close what is it that you want folks to know about fighting for what you believe in I I just want them to know the story you know keep keep those stories alive um and I hope that's what the Tep Center will be for days for years to come you know a place where they can come and and experience those days of of struggle of what we went through and what it took to get educated and not just for the desegregation of public schools for more than than than well at least for of all the movements that happened in New Orleans you know they didn't children walking in around in New Orleans don't even know the history of things that happened right here you know and and they need to these stories need to be placed somewhere where they'll be shared and for years to come for years to come I for one excuse me thank you I'm sorry but if not if schools don't want to teach it you know we have to have somewhere for them to learn that ex you know experience that well I for one want to thank you uh from the bottom of my heart for the work that you do and have done um our longest days uh would have been a cakewalk for you so I I dare not compare the work that we do today to the work that you did then uh what we think is hard you made so because you did the real hard work you did the really heavy lifting as a child and as a freedom fighter so I want to thank you a million times over uh and please know that your work is is respected your life is studied and for folks like me all the way up here in uh New York City right now um we really do appreciate you and please know that we are still fighting to make your legacy worth the amount of work that you put into it because you deserve you deserve to live to see what y'all fought for. So I'm gonna keep on keeping all sis and I appreciate you. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01:You're so welcome nice meeting you likewise take good care you too bye bye