NEW ORLEANS — A ceremonial procession moved down St. Charles Avenue as Tessie Prevost-Williams’ flag-draped casket approached Gallier Hall.
U.S Park Rangers lined the steps while New Orleans Police Officers carried the late civil rights icon into the hall to lie in state.
Prevost along with 6-year-olds Leona Tate, Gail Etienne, and Ruby Bridges made history desegregating schools in New Orleans and the South in 1960.
That was six years after the Supreme Court Brown v Board of Education court ruling making segregated schools unconstitutional.
Ledon Kelly is a longtime friend and former classmate.
“I went with her to a second school Thomas Sims in fourth grade, she started in first grade,” Kelly said. “It was hard as kids we were kids being taunted at, called names, spit on, but we endured.”
Mayor LaToya Cantrell was among a long line of people saying goodbye to Prevost Williams.
Donald Lymous said his cousin helped pave the way for today’s young people to go to a public school of their choice.
“I was spit on too,” Lymous said. “I was talked about. But I recognize and realize that the struggle is not over yet. They take it for granted because we have more than we ever had before.”
Carol Joshua knew Prevost Williams all her life.
Joshua said it touched her heart to see U.S. Marshals escorting the late civil rights pioneer in the possession as they did so many years ago as she and the other girls entered McDonogh 19 in the Lower Ninth Ward.
“They were like 5 and 6 years old when people were throwing rocks at them and calling them names,” Joshua said. “I also remember the federal marshal who promised Dorothy, her mother, that he would give up his life to protect Tessie, and those words, I’ll never forget.”
Prevost-Williams died on July 6, following a series of medical complications.
She was 69 years old.
Funeral services for Prevost-Williams will be held Saturday, from 10 to noon at the Branch Bell Baptist Church in the Lower Ninth Ward.
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