82 - First Day of School—1960, New Orleans

The Kitchen Sisters Present

The Kitchen Sisters & Radiotopia

Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2017

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

November 14, 1960 — Four six-year-old girls, flanked by Federal Marshals, walked through screaming crowds and policemen on horseback as they approached their new schools for the first time. Leona Tate thought it must be Mardi Gras. Gail thought they were going to kill her.

Four years after the Supreme Court ruled to desegregate schools in Brown v Board of Education, schools in the south were dragging their feet. Finally, in 1960, the NAACP and a daring judge selected two schools in New Orleans to push forward with integration — McDonogh No.19 Elementary and William Frantz.

An application was put in the paper. From 135 families, four girls were selected. They were given psychological tests. Their families were prepared. Members of the Louisiana Legislature took out paid advertisements in the local paper encouraging parents to boycott the schools. There were threats of violence.

When the girls going to McDonogh No. 19 arrived in their classroom, the white children began to disappear.
One by one their parents took them out of school. For a year and a half the girls were the only children in the
school. Guarded night and day, they were not allowed to play outdoors. The windows were covered with brown paper.

The story of integrating the New Orleans Public schools in 1960 told by Leona Tate, Tessie Prevost
Williams, and Gail Etienne Stripling, who integrated McDonogh No.19 Elementary School, and retired Deputy U.S. Marshals Herschel Garner, Al Butler, and Charlie Burks who assisted with the integration efforts at the schools.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Radio Topia. Welcome to the Kitchen Sisters Presently.
0:04.2	PRX. We're the Kitran Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nicki Silva.
0:09.1	Hi there, thank you so much to everyone who has already donated to support
0:16.1	Radiotopia and this show during our fall fundraiser. I love reading the
0:20.5	comments listeners leave when you donate like this one from a listener who says all my favorite Love Thank you, Kristen. Our fundraiser is coming to a close later this month. If we reach our goal of 1,000 donors, after the holidays we'll share a digital zine with everyone who donated to help us get there. But we're still a little short. As of this recording, we still
0:44.3	need 160 more listeners to donate. If you've been on the fence or meaning to donate, please consider
0:50.4	making your tax deductible gift today to support independent
0:54.3	podcasts like ours. As you've probably heard us say your donation not only helps
0:58.3	fund our show, it's also a vote of confidence, a statement that shows like this should exist. Thank you so much for
1:05.4	listening and supporting our work. You can head to radiotopia. FM slash
1:10.7	donate to make your gift today.
1:13.2	Thank you very much.
1:14.4	I can remember right before I started going to Macdown in 19, my aunt and I took a bus ride to
1:29.4	Canal Street, we took a bus ride.
1:31.4	She was paying the fare and I sat down right behind the driver and she said,
1:35.0	oh no you can't sit there and I asked her why and she said, well you don't understand now, but in a few weeks you will. So I knew something was about to happen.
1:45.0	Today on the Kitchen Sisters Present, we returned to New Orleans,
1:50.0	1960 for the first day of school.
1:54.0	I can remember getting dressed and a black car drove up, parked in front of the door.
2:06.0	The household got real quiet.
2:09.0	It was the US marshals coming.
2:11.0	So my mother and I left, and they drove us to the school building and she
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -2700 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Kitchen Sisters & Radiotopia, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Kitchen Sisters & Radiotopia and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.