New Orleans civil rights icon Tessie Prevost dead at 69

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Funeral services will be held Saturday for one of four Black girls who helped integrate New Orleans public schools in 1960.

Tessie Prevost Williams, known as one of the “New Orleans Four,” died July 6 following a series of medical complications. She was 69.

On Nov. 14, 1960, Prevost Williams, along with 6-year-olds Leona Tate and Gail Etienne walked into McDonogh No. 19 Elementary School as groups of white people spit, cursed and threw rocks at them. On that same day, Ruby Bridges integrated William Frantz Elementary School. The girls’ history-making treks came six years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling made segregated schools unconstitutional.

On Friday, Prevost Williams’ flag-draped casket will lie in state at Gallier Hall in New Orleans from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. Funeral services will be from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturday at Branch Bell Baptist Church in the city’s Lower 9th Ward, and a traditional jazz brass band will accompany the funeral procession.

A final salute will be held at the Tate, Etienne and Prevost Civil Rights Interpretive Center, which formerly held the school she and her classmates desegregated. The center offers a walk-through history of the girls’ contributions to the Civil Rights Movement.

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“This center stands as a testament to their enduring commitment to civil rights and serves as an invaluable educational resource,” said New Orleans Public Schools Superintendent Avis Williams.

Etienne told WWL-TV she will never forget walking into McDonogh 19 with her classmate.

“I’m truly going to miss her,” she said.

In recent years, Prevost Williams and Etienne launched the New Orleans Four Legacy Collection as a way to ensure that their history as the New Orleans Four will never be forgotten.

“When we would get together and just talk about the things that happened, those were the good times, even though we would talk about things that weren’t good,” Etienne said.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell described Prevost Williams as “a trailblazer in the fight for civil rights.”

“Facing intense hostility and unimaginable challenges, her courage paved the way for greater educational equality throughout the United States,” Cantrell said. “Her bravery and determination helped dismantle the barriers of segregation, inspiring countless others in the struggle for justice and equality.”

“She’ll be sorely missed,” U.S. Rep. Troy Carter said. “But the fight that she took on and the fight that she continued to take on until her death is one of equality, fairness, justice.”

He said her life is a reminder to never take for granted our freedoms.

“The freedoms we enjoy are not free. They require our involvement, our civic duty. They require us to vote and to hold people accountable,” Carter said.