White parents pulled their children out of the school, so for the entire first grade the three African-American girls were alone. They weren’t allowed to eat in the school cafeteria, or use the playground, so they played underneath an internal stairwell.
The historic school is now preserved as the Tate Etienne and Prevost Center, an interpretive space to teach New Orleans’ civil rights history.
A fourth Black student in New Orleans, Ruby Bridges, integrated the all-white William Franz Elementary School the same year.