ltate24@nul.org
Speaker Bio
On November 14, 1960, 6-year-old Leona Tate became one of four girls to desegregate white-only public elementary schools in the Deep South – a major focal point in the history of the American Civil Rights Movement. Decades later, she established the Leona Tate Foundation for Change (LTFC) to purchase McDonogh 19, the school she and fellow students Tessie Prevost and Gail Etienne integrated. LTFC and development partners bought the McDonogh 19 campus, which reopened in 2022 as the Tate, Etienne, and Prevost (TEP) Center, a mixed-use development dedicated to the history of desegregation and civil rights. Dr. Tate's mission for TEP is to create a safe space and community anchor where the public can learn, support, and train for anti-racism activism and restorative justice. In 2023, Tate was bestowed an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from St. Thomas Christian University and Macalester College.