Louisiana unveiling 2 new Civil Rights Trail markers

NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana is unveiling two new Civil Rights Trail markers — one at the room where three Black first graders integrated a New Orleans school in 1960, and the other honoring an African American tank battalion formed during World War II.

Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser will lead ceremonies Tuesday at the former McDonogh 19 Elementary School, for the marker to Gail Etienne, Leona Tate and Tessie Prevost, and Wednesday at Camp Beauregard in Pineville, paying tribute to the 761st Tank Battalion. Each marker on the trail is a 6-foot-tall steel silhouette of a human with a sign explaining the events that took place at the site.

The school is now being developed as a civil rights museum named the Tate, Etienne, Prevost Center. The girls were its only students for months because white parents pulled their children out.

Starting Nov. 14, 1960, U.S. marshals escorted them to school every day. "The girls had recess indoors, ate under staircases, and the windows were covered at all times," a news release recounted.

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