This was One of the First Two Schools to Desegregate in New Orleans LA

McDonogh 19 Elementary School, New Orleans Louisiana

Date added: March 28, 2025

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Louisiana
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McDonogh 19 was built in 1929 using appropriations from the McDonogh Fund. It was one of dozens of schools financed by the fund, which was established by entrepreneur John McDonogh. In his will, he stated that he was leaving funds to be used for the free education in Baltimore and New Orleans. The majority of the schools built with his fund were named after him with a number (i.e. McDonogh 19).

The school was designed by famed New Orleans school architect, E.A. Christy. After finishing his architectural studies, Christy became the city architect in 1904 and became the Orleans Parish School Board architect in 1911. He designed over 40 schools for the school board and defined what a New Orleans neighborhood school was. The school was an all-white school until 1960 when it and Frantz Elementary were chosen to be the first two public schools for desegregation. On November 14^th, 1960, federal marshals escorted the four girls, three at McDonogh and one at Frantz, to school. Angry demonstrations occurred at both schools.

Without a question, Brown v. Board of Education is among the Supreme Court's best known and most far-reaching decisions. It overturned the decades-old legal foundation of Jim Crow segregation, the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, wherein the high court ruled that segregated facilities were constitutional as long as they were equal - the famous (or infamous) "separate but equal" doctrine. In Brown, Chief Justice Earl Warren, speaking for a unanimous court, concluded in the now famous words, "that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place." "Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." Why? Again, quoting Warren, "To separate them [black students] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone." In what came to be known as Brown II, issued in 1955, the Supreme Court ordered schools to desegregate "with all deliberate speed." The South responded with great deliberation and little speed.

The region's dogged determination to evade and otherwise resist Brown was and is known as "massive resistance." On March 12^th, 1956 Southern Congressmen replied to Brown with "a declaration of constitutional principles" known as "The Southern Manifesto," signed by nineteen senators and eighty-two representatives. Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia is credited with the first use of the phrase "massive resistance." In seeking to justify the Manifesto to his colleagues, Byrd explained that its drafting was "part of the plan of massive resistance we've been working on and I hope and believe it will be an effective action." The arsenal of massive resistance was a panoply of legislative enactments, city ordinances, legal decisions and executive orders across the South aimed at maintaining segregation, Brown notwithstanding. Legislatures passed laws providing for the closure of public schools if one school desegregated, freezing school board financial assets, etc. The most revolutionary doctrine of the "massive resisters" was that of interposition - the notion that a state could "interpose" its sovereignty between the federal courts and the school system - in effect, that a state could decide which Supreme Court decisions it would follow. As one historian has noted, the doctrine of interposition "ignored both the supremacy clause of the Constitution and the political lessons of the Civil War." Louisiana, too, would use interposition as the ultimate weapon during the New Orleans school crisis of 1960. The courts (all the way to the Supreme Court) ruled it unconstitutional.

The immediate post-Brown years saw clash after clash as court-ordered desegregation came to the South, some famous and some little known. The showdown seared in the nation's memory, of course, was in 1957 at Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. Little Rock's singular status rests upon the intervention of the Eisenhower administration with federal troops. Governor Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent "the Little Rock Nine" from attending Central High. Given the tenseness of the situation, Eisenhower had little choice but to respond with force. To a great extent, the events in Little Rock have overshadowed all other confrontations.

The New Orleans School Crisis

While some feared that New Orleans would be "another Little Rock," it wasn't. State government fought desegregation with a vehemence and frenzy unmatched by others; however, Governor Jimmy Davis stopped short of calling out the National Guard. Hence, the Eisenhower administration, in its waning days, was not forced to send troops to New Orleans. Federal marshals enforced court-ordered desegregation in New Orleans as the nation watched on television and followed events in magazines and newspapers. (The crisis spilled over into the Kennedy administration and was most definitely on Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy's radar screen.)

New Orleans' desegregation crisis traces its origins to 1952, when the NAACP filed Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board. Attorneys for the plaintiffs were Thurgood Marshall and New Orleanian A. P. Tureaud. (Tureaud devoted his professional life to civil rights litigation.) Federal Judge F. Skelly Wright, with the plaintiffs in concurrence, decided to delay the case until the Supreme Court ruled on Brown. In February 1956, in the first of many decisions in the case, a three-judge U. S. District Court in New Orleans ruled that segregation in public schools was invalid under Brown. Wright, in ordering desegregation, wrote:

The problems attendant desegregation in the Deep South are considerably more serious than generally appreciated in some sections of our country. The problem of changing a people's mores, particularly those with an emotional overlay, is not to be taken lightly … But the magnitude of the problem may not nullify the principle. And that principle is that we are, all of us, freeborn Americans, with a right to make our way, unfettered by sanctions imposed by man because of the work of God.

All in all, the Bush case involved forty-one separate judicial decisions between 1952 and 1962, including six instances of the United State Supreme Court affirming the federal court. As Jack Bass observed in Unlikely Heroes, "As much as any case, Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board tested the supremacy of federal law." The federal courts, continues Bass, "maintained the rule of law against the most furious legal assault of any state against the supremacy clause of the Constitution." U. S. Attorney General Kennedy took the proactive stance of bringing the federal government into two of the Louisiana school suits as an amicus curiae [friend of the court] without any invitation and without any immediate threat of violence. According to an observer writing in 1971, "this step was unprecedented."

Some four years after the 1956 decision, the New Orleans School Board still had not developed a desegregation plan. As one historian has noted, "Nothing happened to suggest that anyone believed the New Orleans schools would ever be desegregated." On May 16^th, 1960, after the board failed to meet its latest deadline, Wright ordered the public schools of New Orleans to desegregate under a plan of his choosing. Starting in the fall, "all children entering the first grade may attend either the formerly all-white public school nearest their home, or formerly all-Negro public school nearest their homes, at their option."

A complicated battle between the federal courts and the State of Louisiana raged in the summer of 1960. State government spoke with a monolithic voice. Any and everything would be done to preserve segregation, even if it meant closing schools. Like other Southern states, the Louisiana legislature had adopted various segregation statutes in the mid-1950s. A 1958 measure authorized closing of desegregated schools and transfer of school property to private, non-sectarian schools. A poll conducted by the Orleans Parish School Board that summer found that 82% of white parents would rather close public schools than see their child attend classes with African-Americans.

The thrusts and counter-thrusts between the State of Louisiana and the federal courts are far too numerous to detail in this document. As fast as the legislature passed a law or Governor Jimmie Davis issued an executive order, the courts struck it down. (Davis had just won the governorship in a race dominated by the segregation issue. He owed his victory to segregationists. His Executive Order #1, seizing control of the School Board, was among the many struck down by the federal court.)

In New Orleans, the school board sought and received a final reprieve from Judge Wright. As the opening of school dawned, the board was not prepared, and received a delay until November. Desegregation accomplished in November would be by transfer, and, it was felt, would involve fewer students. So, New Orleans schools opened on a segregated basis in September 1960, with "D-day" set for November 14th. The school board chose the students using the state's 17-provision public placement law (a segregationist dodge used throughout the South). Of the 136 requests from African-American parents, only five first graders were chosen - all girls and all in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, a depressed blue collar neighborhood. There couldn't have been a worst choice for a social experiment of this nature. By the time "D-day" arrived, the parents of one little girl withdrew her name. Three of the students would attend McDonogbh, and only one at Frantz. Despite attempts from everyone, including Governor Davis, to learn the names of the schools and the children, the identities remained a secret until that morning, when the young girls arrived at their respective schools with federal marshals.

The State of Louisiana continued to act as if Little Rock had never happened. Governor Davis called a special session of the legislature to begin November 4th. Twenty-nine segregation bills were bulldozed through a four-day session. Writing in 1964 in Portrait of a Decade: The Second American Revolution, Anthony Lewis observed quite aptly that the state legislature "executed every possible evasive or delaying tactic that could be put into statute form." One law imposed criminal penalties against anyone who attempted to interfere with the state's control of education, including officers of the federal government. All bills passed with huge majorities, with an interposition bill passing unanimously. Wright countered with restraining orders, whereupon the State Superintendent of Education declared November 14^th a statewide school holiday. Immediately, Wright issued a restraining order against the holiday. When an act authorizing a legislative committee to take control of Orleans Parish schools was enjoined, the legislature declared the entire body to be in charge of the schools. In an unprecedented move, Judge Wright enjoined the entire state legislature.

With the power of the federal courts behind them, four first-graders on November 14^th, 1960, without even knowing it, butted heads with the bastion of segregation, the Deep South. By mid-morning, the names of the schools being desegregated were known, and crowds (mainly woman) gathered to jeer. The women hurled vicious insults at the children, lobbed eggs, and spit at them. They were there when school started and when it dismissed in the afternoon. The numbers can't be determined with certainty, reports from the media vary. The New York Times, reporting on November 15^th, estimated the first day's crowd at Frantz to number about 150. Look magazine reported that some 400 were there in late November. Other accounts give estimates at Frantz of as much as a thousand at the peak (which one suspects is too high). Little Ruby Bridges was particularly vulnerable, being the only child at Frantz. And it seemed that the protesters sensed this, for all accounts indicate that the crowds were larger at Frantz.

The evening after "D-day" some 5,000 members of the White Citizens Council (a segregationist organization formed in the South in the mid-1950s) attended a rally at the Municipal Auditorium to protest desegregation. Some accounts of the event likened it to rallies in Nazi Germany. Arch segregationist State Senator Willie Ranich advocated a scorched earth policy. Leander Perez, a rabid racist who ruled adjacent Plaquemines Parish, whipped the crowd into a frenzy with one of his typically "over-the-top" speeches. Yes, the views of Ranich and Perez were not those of most New Orleanians, but the voices of segregationists were those being heard. They had seized the day, both locally and in state government.

The following day is the closest New Orleans came to a race riot. A mob composed of teenagers (truant from school) and adults variously estimated at between one and three thousand marched on city hall, the school board office, and Judge Wright's office. City police controlled them with mounted forces and a few fire hoses. The mob eventually disbursed, but not before roaming the area throwing stones and bottles at blacks in buses and cars. Breaking his "head in the sand" silence, Mayor Chep Morrison made an appeal on television that night for an end to the violence. His talk stressed the damage that could be done to the city's image from "the ugly irresponsible incidents such as took place today." That evening, African-American teenagers took to the streets in response to the white-inflicted violence of the previous day. A few whites were shot and beaten (but none critically). The police made 250 arrests, mainly of blacks.

Back in Baton Rouge, Governor Davis kept calling special sessions, five in total, extending through late February 1961. The most menacing legislation was an attack on school board funds that caused considerable difficulties in meeting payroll. All this occurred despite a November 30^th decision by a three-judge federal court declaring the Interposition Act and the rest of the legislature's package unconstitutional, a decision upheld by the U. S. Supreme Court on December 12th. All in all, over 700 State and city officials had been enjoined from interfering with desegregation.

As events unfolded the United States Justice Department continued to monitor the situation. In an interview given in 1964 by Attorney General Kennedy and Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall, Kennedy indicated that a particularly important issue was the threat to withdraw funds from desegregated schools. It finally boiled down, said Kennedy, to "whether we were willing to put some of these people in jail. Some important public officials. So we were involved, within two months, in a really major struggle with them."

Assistant Attorney General Marshall recalled Kennedy saying, at the time, "We'll have to do whatever is necessary." "He was really mad … It was the first time that either one of us had been involved directly … with the way that the segregation system worked in practice, and how difficult it was going to be. And they were so irrational about it down there." The "whatever was necessary" in this instance, was contempt proceedings (or the threat thereof) against various state officials (apparently in reference to the threat of freezing funds in desegregated schools). Anthony Lewis observed in Portrait of a Decade: The Second American Revolution (1964) that "as the months went on it became evident that state officials would back down rather than go to jail for contempt of court." (Accounts of Kennedy and contempt proceedings against Louisiana officials vary in the details. According to one historian - Carl M. Brauer in John F. Kennedy and the Second Reconstruction - the funding crisis was resolved when Robert Kennedy personally called Louisiana officials to warn them that the government was prepared to seek contempt-of-court sentences, whereupon they backed down.)

What happened at Frantz and McDonogh, of course, was token integration to avoid real integration, as happened across the South. By late December 1960 the crowds had generally died down, and the State of Louisiana had been beaten back by the federal courts. Ruby Bridges finished the first grade at Frantz in a class of one. The cost of being a trailblazer was high. Her parents received innumerable threats and her father was fired from his job. The Gabrielles, one of the two white families not participating in the boycott, were harassed until they gave up and moved to Rhode Island.

Feature-length stories on the Gabrielles appeared in Look, Good Housekeeping, and Redbook. The five-page article in the March 14^th, 1961 issue of Look was titled "Exodus from New Orleans." "Millions of Americans," wrote the author, "were shocked" to learn that the Gabrielles had "been forced to leave New Orleans." "They had cheered Mrs. Gabrielle on their television screens as she defied the mobs." In an interview, Mrs. Gabrielle recounted the threats and harassment that caused them to leave the city, her home of some 35 years. She was quick to note, "It is a minority of people who are causing all the trouble."

Desegregation at McDonogh 19

Whether the events from that day were described by journalists or by the young girls who experienced them firsthand, it is clear that their actions, simply by attending school, were certainly heroic. Five young girls were originally chosen out of 137 black students after a litany of tests, to attend the two schools, three at McDonogh and two at Frantz, but one of the young girl's parents decided to opt out of the plan and thus, Ruby Bridges was the lone student at Frantz. Leona Tate, Tessie Prevost, and Gail Etienne were the three girls to attend McDonogh. All four girls were picked up at their homes by Federal marshals to be escorted to school each day.

After the white students had gotten settled in their classes at McDonogh, Tate, Etienne, and Prevost arrived at the school and the crowd that had gathered began to yell at them. Police, who were on site already, moved the angry crowd off of the sidewalk to the median of St. Claude Avenue, and the girls were walked into the school building via the front stairs. McDonogh had a normal daily student population of 460 students, but on November 14^th, only 94 showed up and by the end of the day, only thirty remained in class. When the girls left school that day, they were met with shouts of, "Don't come back tomorrow - you'd better not come back at all."

Leona Tate described her first year of school in a 2004 Times Picayune article as:

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education that racial segregation in the public schools was unconstitutional.

That was the year I was born. And here in New Orleans, the "go slow" approach was in full effect. It took the Orleans Parish School Board six years to act upon the law of the land. By that time, I was ready for the first grade. In 1960, two other little girls [Gail Etienne, Tessie Prevost] and I became the first black pupils to attend McDonogh No. 19 Elementary School in the Ninth Ward.

I distinctly remember the first day of school. My house was filled with family members helping my mother, Louise Tate, and I prepare me to start first grade. Everyone was ecstatic. I remember how we all rushed around our house, getting ready.

Then the black car arrived carrying two men to drive us to my new school. They were white, but the color of their skin did not send up a red flag for me. However, I can remember having a somewhat strange feeling about the drive, even though it wasn't that far.

I'm sure my family was worried, but they never showed it around me. At six, riding in a car was a novelty to me, but my mother simply told me to stay seated and not to put my face up against the window. I did as Mama told me, realizing only later that it was a safety precaution.

As we arrived near the school, the car slowed down and everything I seemed to go in slow motion. Somehow, we were able to maneuver through a crowd of cursing, screaming, yelling people who were being held back by the police.

I didn't understand why those people were being held back. The only reason I could think of was to keep them safe, so that the moving cars wouldn't hit them. It never dawned on me that I was the object of their yelling or that they were trying to get to me. I don't remember any crowds on the school site, other than the police officers.

After being escorted up the stairs of the school, the three of us were seated on a bench in the hallway outside the office. We stayed there for a long time. The school was full of students, but when we arrived in the classroom, they began to leave rapidly, as if they had been swept up by the wind. I remember trying to talk to the other students, but to no avail. On my first day of first grade, it was as if I were totally invisible.

For the rest of that year and approximately half of the next year, the three of us were the only students at McDonogh 19 Elementary School. We were given a lot of attention, though. I loved school. The information was so new, refreshing and thorough. And my teacher, Mrs. Meyers, seemed quite comfortable teaching me.

We were insulated from the yelling and screaming outside. The classroom windows were covered with brown paper. The schoolyard was off-limits: We were happy to have recess in the big auditorium, where there was even a stage on which to play. In another strange touch, the water fountains had been turned off. Did officials fear that someone might try to poison the three first-graders? I've never really been sure.

Thanks to the determination of my family, I went on to get a good education. Today, the success of integration is spotty. But for the most part, the intent of African-Americans in pursuing integration has been woefully misconstrued.

The primary focus was never our being able to sit next to white children in a classroom, as much as it was about equality in books, classroom and gymnastic facilities, etc. We wanted current, up-to-date books and quality scholastic materials, just like our white counterparts. It was never about "forced integration," but was and is still about fairness and equality.

Gail Etienne described the car rides to McDonogh as terrifying. She remembers the car driving through a crowd of angry white protesters and while she didn't understand why they were angry, "I thought if they could get to me, they would kill me."

Tessie Prevost stated that she didn't remember any specific moments of being scared during those first few days, but she does remember that her mother was worried. "She told the marshal, she said, 'I'm giving you my baby; this is my baby.' And he told her, 'This is my job. And I'm going to take care of this baby. You don't have to worry about that." Even with his assurance, Tessie's mother would go back into the house each day and pray for the girls' safety."

Once they were inside the school though, the girls felt safe and were protected from whatever was occurring outside with the classroom windows papered over. They played inside in the auditorium rather than on the playground out back. And they weren't allowed to use the water fountains because those in charge feared someone would try to poison them. The marshals stayed in the school the entire day although the girls didn't realize that they were there all of the time until more recently.

While Ms. Tate mentioned that the three were the only students that year, there were a couple attempts by white students to attend the school, but these attempts ended in harassment for the children and their families. Gregory Thompson, 9, and his younger brother, Michael, 8, broke the white boycott in January of 1961. The boys' family had moved near the school after the boys had attended schools in St. Bernard Parish and they were tired of the long bus rides. As Gregory left school his first day back, he was called a traitor by the masses of white mothers gathered outside of the school. A mob also protested at their father's work, Walgreen's, and he was fired. The family was then asked to move out of their apartment and left the city.

Like their white classmate, the girls' families also received threats and other continued discrimination outside of school. While they did receive some letters of encouragement, they also received a lot of hate mail. Like Mr. Thompson, their parents lost their jobs. Even changing their home telephone numbers didn't help as the segregationists would get their new numbers quickly. Federal marshals also watched over their houses to protect the families and on one occasion, Gail Etienne remembers the marshals stopping a car that was in front of their house and finding a rifle inside.

The girls stayed at McDonogh 19 for another year and there were five black students and one white student in 1961-62. For third grade, their parents transferred them to integrate another formerly all-white school in the Lower Ninth Ward, T.J. Semmes Elementary. Initially, the girls did not know why they had to leave McDonogh, but their parents wanted to ensure that they were transferred to the same school as their white classmates. When they got to Semmes, the white students stayed at the school and bullied the girls. Gail Etienne stated that, "We were all spit upon. I had my dress ripped almost completely off of me. I was hit in the stomach with a baseball bat." Furthermore, some of the white teachers encouraged white students to be cruel towards the girls: "The girls remember getting into fights or near-fights most days. For a while, a white mother would force her child to punch Prevost every day at the bus stop." One teacher who was particularly mean was called the devil's bride by the girls. Tessie Prevost Williams remembered, "I can still close my eyes and see her piercing blue eyes. She had blond hair, she was thin, and she wore pastel colors every day. She would hold her nose every time she had to get near us … She could encourage other children to fight us. She'd say, 'Hit her.'"

What was termed token integration, the process of desegregating New Orleans' public schools was on a year by year basis. There were no major efforts to integrate, but rather, black families had to arrange for their children to transfer into white schools. This coupled with white flight led to most of the public schools being a majority African American by the late 1960s. By this point, the girls decided to attend all black middle schools and attended Rivers Frederick in the Seventh Ward.

For high school, the choices in the area were either the all-white Francis T. Nicholls High School or the all-black Carver High School. Leona and Gail decided that even though Nicholls, which had a "rebel" mascot and was named for a Confederate hero, would be a better option than Carver. Tessie decided to attend Joseph S. Clark High School, another all-black high school. Leona and Tessie started at Nicholls in 1970 and joined other black students who made up about 30-40% of the student population. The black students were successful in removing the rebel mascot (not without resistance) and a biracial committee was created at the school as well. The girls were able to make white friends at Nicholls, but they still faced fights from some students. One day, Leona remembers looking out of the window of their classroom and saw a white and black mob coming towards each other with weapons and she stayed out of school for the next two weeks. When the girls graduated, Nicholls was almost an all-black school.

The Legacy of McDonogh 19

The events that took place at McDonogh 19 were truly historic and along with the integration of Frantz Elementary, the face of public education in New Orleans began to change. It wouldn't be until the 1970s that one could say that all Louisiana schools were desegregated and the events at these two schools on November 14^th, 1960 were the earliest attempts of integration in accordance with the Federal law.

In 2010, the 'McDonogh 3' along with the federal marshals who escorted them to school unveiled a historic marker in the median in front of the school. At the time, the goal was to bring interest back to the school and educate the public about what happened there. Two years later, federal marshal Al Butler had his ashes spread at the school. Prior to his death, he asked his wife to take his ashes back to New Orleans and said, "I was involved in an awful lot of things during my career. But nothing was as heartwarming or satisfying as putting those little girls in school." In addition to his work at McDonogh, Butler worked through riots at the University of Mississippi, provided security for Freedom Riders in Montgomery, and for the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma. A ceremony was held at a local church for him and following the service, the three girls he escorted to school spread his ashes near the school building.

For his role in the desegregation of McDonogh, Butler stated, "It was not only the law; it was right. One of the things that was in my mind was, 'I have two small children, and when they get to be school age, I'll be damned if anyone is going to tell them they can't go to school." Butler's legacy is clear and his impact on the three young girls was significant. Gail Etienne described Butler as "my other daddy. He watched out for me like a father."

Site Description

McDonogh 19 Elementary School, built in 1929, is a three story stuccoed building that was designed by Edgar Angelo Christy in the Italian Renaissance Revival style. It takes up one city block in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. It has not been altered since construction.

The main school building is visually divided horizontally with a contrasting stuccoed concrete base at ground level and a concrete stringcourse between the first and second floors. The hipped roof is sheathed in clay tiles and the wide roof overhang exhibits open eaves, a box beam, brackets, and carved rafter tails. The windows are grouped into sets of five and primarily consist of 3-light awning wood windows. The main entrance is on the second floor, accessed by an exterior split staircase. The door surround features engaged pilasters and entablature with the name "McDonogh No 19 Public School." Scrolled brackets flank the set of casement and pivot windows, which are located above the entrance entablature. The interior maintains its original configuration of spaces including the administrative office at the top of the entrance stairs, classrooms, library, center hallways, and secondary staircases. The original interior wood windows, doors, and transoms remain along with chalkboards, built-in cabinets and fireplace (in the library). Decorative plaster elements on the main level and Mediterranean cutouts above the entry openings are also intact.

A rear cafeteria was constructed circa 1938. The cafeteria and main building are connected by a concrete block hallway addition constructed at an unknown date. The caretaker's cottage, constructed in the late 1920s, is also located on the campus.

Today, the concrete block hallway mentioned connecting the main building to the cafeteria is no longer standing. The windows and doors throughout the building are currently covered with security shutters, but all are still intact. Some bracing has been added to a few rooms on the left side of the building for structural stability. There has been some deterioration, mainly of the paint finishes, but the rest of the school is virtually exactly as it was in 1960.

The features that are intact on the building include wooden baseboards, door, and window trim; chalkboards (painted over); original wood doors with upper glass lights; original wood windows; interior operable transoms; window hardware; built-in cabinets; original stair cases; wood floors; tile floors at entrance; plaster ceilings; and decorative plaster elements such as corbels, Mediterranean cutouts above the entry, and the fireplace. On the exterior, the character defining features that remain are stucco exterior with niches and stucco or concrete base; cast concrete molding; cast concrete string course and cornice; double wood doors with multi-lite glazing; red clay tile roof; chimney on the rear elevation; hipped roof; wide roof overhang with open eaves, and carved rafter tails, and brackets.

The only other alterations of mention is that in the basement, there was an auditorium with a stage at the east end. The stage is no longer there and the auditorium walls were removed so that the basement is now just one large open space. They were removed due to Hurricane Katrina water and mold damage.

Behind the school is a large paved playground area with a backstop at the northeast corner.

The Cafeteria building in the McDonogh 19 Elementary School complex was built circa 1938, approximately 9 years after the construction of the main school building. It continues to sit largely unaltered and in its original position northwest of the main school building. Similarly, it retains its original relationship to the rest of the school campus, with its eastern facade facing the paved playground area, the northern facade facing the 1920s caretaker's cottage, and the western facade facing Alabo Street.

The style of the building is visually continuous with the characteristic Italian Renaissance Revival style of the main school building, though it is significantly scaled down and simplified in correspondence to its smaller, accessory status. It is a one-story, wood-framed building with a concrete block foundation and an exterior stucco finish matching the color and texture of the main building. The hipped deck roof is covered in red asphalt shingles and has wide overhangs, again harkening back to the visual elements of the main building's character-defining red-tiled hipped roof. As a reflection of the cafeteria's more utilitarian nature, there is very minimal detailing with no decorative trim, and the eaves are boxed instead of exposed. The fascia and flashing of the roof are covered in matching metal material.

On the west facade, there are three door openings with the two outer-lying doors grouped into bays of seven and eight side-by-side, 3/3 sash windows with horizontal muntins. Similarly, the eastern facade has a grouping of one doorway and seven windows on the northern side, as well as a single door and three separate windows toward he south. All exterior doors and windows are currently covered with metal security shutters. Though the doors themselves are missing, all original wood door frames are present and all original wood windows are in place. Poured concrete steps lead up from the ground level at each door.

The main part of the south facade is devoid of any openings beyond a metal vent placed high on the wall. The southeast corner facing the main school building is staggered into two bays. On the south-facing wall of the first bay is an entryway with poured concrete steps. The other bay includes a small shed-roof projecting volume which might be an addition. Exterior stucco has been removed and replaced with temporary plywood on two of the walls. The only significant alteration to the building is the removal of the connecting concrete block hallway that once connected the main building to the cafeteria entrance via an indoor ramp. Though the ramp is no longer extant, the original foundation and outline are still visible, as are the points of connection on the building, allowing or accurate knowledge of where and how the ramp did once connect.

On the interior, the original configuration is intact with a center hallway starting at the entryway and ending midway through the building to transition into an open space housing the former serving area (to the east) and student dining area (to the west). A temporary support wall of unfinished wood studs spans the open dining area from north to south. On the east side of the hallway, three doors lead to separate smaller rooms that served as a storage closet and restrooms. On the opposite side of the hallway a single doorway leads directly into the student dining space. The interior footprint is essentially unaltered, and the original wood floors remain. Gypsum board on the walls and ceilings has been lost in spots throughout the interior due to water intrusion.