Civil rights pioneer Leona Tate presented a lesson in history in her role as keynote speaker for the 2023 Call Me MiSTER Conference held inside the auditorium of the Grambling State University Betty E. Smith Nursing Building on Friday.

 

The Call Me MiSTER (Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role models) program was founded originally at Clemson University in 2000 and strives to increase the pool of African American male teachers, particularly among the lowest-performing elementary schools.

 

A partnership with Clemson in August 2020 brought the Call Me MiSTER program to Grambling State University. Earlier this year, the GSU program received a historic $2 million in federal funding, the largest one-time gift since the inception of the program at Clemson.

 

The Call Me MiSTER program is the most recognized collaborative in the nation for recruiting, retaining, and developing fully certified, career-minded African American male elementary- and middle school-level teachers.

 

It currently represents 25 colleges and universities in South Carolina and 10 institutions in nine other states and has more than doubled the number of African American males teaching in public elementary school classrooms with an 85 percent retention rate of program graduates still teaching, while 14 percent are leading schools in administrative roles.

 

Tate was only 6 years old when she became a historical figure herself as a civil rights activist and leader.

 

On Nov. 14, 1960, Tate, alongside classmates Gail Etienne and Tessie Prevost, desegregated the previously all-white McDonogh #19 Elementary School. These girls, escorted by federal marshals, were the first black students to attend an integrated public school in Louisiana, along with Ruby Bridges at the nearby William Frantz Elementary. National media covered the desegregation of McDonogh and William Frantz elementary schools highlighting this historic event and the bravery of the four schoolgirls.

 

Nearly 50 years later, the 2008 historic election of America’s first Black president, Barack Obama, birthed a renewed sense of activism in Tate.

 

Only a few months later, she founded the Leona Tate Foundation for Change, which is dedicated to the principle that, in order to achieve harmony among humankind, every person should have comparable opportunities and exposure.

 

Providing access to equal educational opportunities for greater New Orleans area youth is an essential component to implementing this principle. In recent years, the foundation has worked to transform the McDonogh No. 19 Elementary School building into the Tate, Etienne, and Prevost (TEP) Interpretive Center — the first space dedicated to preserving and teaching the history of the civil rights movement in New Orleans.

 

“Today I pay homage to our ancestors … Harriett Tubman, Nat Turner, Sojourner Truth, Thurgood Marshall, Fannie Lou, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — and that’s just to name a few,” Tate said as she began her speech at the Call Me MiSTER Conference.

 

“And what do these pillars and pioneers of our quest for true freedom, paving the way for the civil rights movement, have in common? They all took risks along with countless others. From the slave ships leaving Gorée Island in Senegal, West Africa, to the cotton fields of the South in North America, our ancestors literally shed their blood, sweat, and tears.

 

Tate talked about the millions of slaves who never made it to North America, dying on the treacherous journey across the ocean from Africa.

 

“The Atlantic Ocean was filled with so many bodies that the sharks followed the slave ships and created a feed trail from West Africa on to America,” Tate said. “On the southern plantations of America, our ancestors worked from “can’t see in the morning” until “can’t see at night” in the cotton fields.

 

“It’s on their shoulders that we stand here today. God has brought us from a mighty long way. And he didn’t bring us this far to leave us now. Even though we as people have come a long way, we still have a long way to go.”

 

Tate then talked about how civil disobedience defined the law of the land back then, and about how in 1892, Homer Plessy demonstrated a courageous act of civil disobedience by founding a New Orleans civil rights group named The Citizens Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law. Tate said that in doing so, Plessy helped set in motion and helped define a 62-year struggle and started a legislative path that led to her own place in civil rights history.

 

“On the morning of Nov. 14, 1960, two other first-grade girls, Gail Etienne, and Tessie Prevost, along with myself, entered the doors of McDonough 19 Elementary School on St. Claude Avenue in New Orleans,” Tate said. “I was only 6 at the time and little did I realize that at that moment Gail, Tessie, and myself had impacted not only the whole city but our entire nation as a whole.”

 

“It was a day still etched in my memories that changed the future of education for all American students. On that particular morning, my mother and I walked hand-in-hand through crowds of angry white faces to the doors of McDonough 19 Elementary School. And as a naïve young 6-year-old, I had no idea of what my mother and I were about to experience.

 

The crowd was so large, Tate at first thought she and her mother had stumbled onto a parade.

 

“It looked like Mardi Gras,” Tate said. “But as I soon found out, it was the farthest thing from a Mardi Gras parade it could be. It was a horrendous nightmare. In my wildest dreams, I could never imagine that people could be so mean. They cursed us, and in actuality called us everything but child of God.”

 

“The only protection my mother and I had was the divine protection of our God and the federal Marshals assigned to protect us.”

 

Tate said that as days turned into weeks, which turned into months, she, along with Gail Etienne and Tessie Prevost, began to realize the enormity and impact of the situation they found themselves in.

 

“We became key participants in what became known as ‘the movement.’ It was not just any movement, but a movement that would give our people the ability to exercise their rights to participate fully and openly without fear, and to realize all the opportunities made available in our nation,” Tate said.

 

“There were many open discussions, planning and a tremendous amount of praying that led up to that day’s activities. The strength of my family and their determination for me not to be excluded from any advantages or opportunities cannot be emphasized enough. In fact, there were encouraged and emboldened a lot of outliers to be drastically altered over the next few years.”

 

In that first year, Tate said her biggest challenges came outside of school walls.

 

“Exposure to the press, facing angry and hostile crowds, and being escorted everywhere by federal Marshals and living with a constant police vigilance outside of my home and in my neighborhood at times seemed very overwhelming.

 

“However, the school provided an oasis, somewhat of a cover from all of the madness. White parents removed their children from school on that first day, leaving Gail, Tessie and I as the only three students in the entire building for the remainder of the year and half of the next year. One brave, caring and compassionate teacher provided us with an excellent first-grade education.”

 

During her second year in school, Tate said approximately 25 students returned to McDonough 19 after the Christmas vacation break.

 

“Interestingly enough, only two white students were included in that group,” Tate said. “It was the next few years that presented the challenge of creating a truly integrated environment.”

 

“We were moved to another white school, Thomas J. Sims, in the third grade. And this time the journey was made without the support of federal marshals or police assistance. The parents did not remove their children but instead brought them to school armed with their biases, prejudices, and misconceptions. It was at this time that the God-strength and true determination passed on to me by my parents would be truly displayed. I had to stand my ground. I would not be defeated by the negativity around me while striving to do my best in school.”

 

Tate told the conference audience the words from her parents that she still strongly remembers to this day.

 

“Everyone is watching you and you must set a good example,” were some of those words still ingrained in Tate’s memories. “My family and I agree that we have no regrets about the decisions that were made to actively participate and help forcefully make the changes that needed to be made. I would not hesitate to do it all over again to assure that no door will stand in the way of African Americans and all of humanity as it relates to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

 

“As an adult, I now understand the impact and significance of what Gail, Tessie and I did to help change the community and nation in which it stands. “Continued recognition as vital players in the 1960s civil rights movement right there is a very humbling experience. It causes me to remain focused on promoting equality, education, and a better life as a whole for everyone, but especially for those in my cultural community.”

 

Tate then reminded GSU’s MiSTERS that today, they must remain fundamentally clear and unambiguous that historically speaking, African Americans were never intended to be educated, let alone receive a quality education.

 

“But guess what? It was thousands of years ago that our ancestors stood on the riverbanks of the Nile and other great African rivers,” Tate said. “We gave the world astronomy, agriculture, chemistry, medicine, alchemy, religion, algebra, and geometry. We built pyramids which remain one of the eight Wonders of the World.”

 

“We gave the world the first civilizations, and we’ll give it the next. We gave the world its first humanity, and we’ll give it the next. We did all of that because of our faith in God and one another. But it has been said, and rightly so, that with recognition and power comes responsibility.”

 

Tate concluded by asking the MiSTERs at the Conference to become parts of history themselves by creating a better future for the youth they will be asked to make an impact on.

 

“Let me remind each of you that whether you want to be like Nat Turner, Harriett Tubman, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., or President Barack Obama, we all have a responsibility in life,” Tate said. “But that includes living our lives to their fullest, and with purpose to help create a fitting conclusion to the events of the 1960s.”

 

“It also includes spreading the word so that each and every one of you can continue to work diligently to maintain and advance the freedoms that so many before you fought for in the past. Whether you’re in a classroom, the workplace or in church, continue to live this great legacy by demanding no less than the best of yourselves as well as others. God has always called on ordinary people to do extraordinary things … and when he needed young Black men to lead our children in school, he called each of them MiSTERs.”