New Orleans civil rights icon Tessie Prevost dead at 69

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Funeral services will be held Saturday for one of four Black women who helped integrate New Orleans public schools when they were girls 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 and 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. On Friday, Prevost Williams’ flag-draped casket will lie in state at Gallier Hall in New Orleans.