There was a moment at the 2024 Democratic National Convention when Oprah took the stage — and the crowd went wild. She spoke boldly about Kamala Harris and her place in a long line of strong Black women who have paved the way. At one point she veered into the story of Tessie Prevost Williams, who recently passed away, and the New Orleans Four.

November 14, 1960 — Four six-year-old girls— Leona Tate, Gail Etienne, Tessie Prevost and Ruby Bridges—flanked by Federal Marshals, walked through screaming crowds and policemen on horseback as they approached their new schools for the first time. Leona Tate thought it must be Mardi Gras. Gail thought they were going to kill her. Tessie Prevost's mother was scared to death handing over her daughter to a Federal Marshal for protection from the mob.

Four years after the Supreme Court ruled to desegregate schools in Brown v. Board of Education, schools in the South were dragging their feet. Finally, in 1960, the NAACP and a daring judge selected two schools in New Orleans to push forward with integration — McDonogh No.19 Elementary and William Frantz.

An application was put in the paper. From 135 families, four girls were selected. They were given psychological tests. Their families were prepared. Members of the Louisiana Legislature took out paid advertisements in the local paper encouraging parents to boycott the schools. There were threats of violence.

When the girls going to McDonogh No.19 arrived in their classroom, the white children began to disappear. One by one their parents took them out of school. For a year and a half the girls were the only children in the school. Guarded night and day, they were not allowed to play outdoors. The windows were covered with brown paper.

Since this story first aired in 2017, The Leona Tate Foundation for Social Change has created the TEP Interpretive Center (Tate, Etienne and Prevost Center) in the former McDonogh No. 19 school where the three girls broke the color barrier in 1960. Its mission is to engage visitors in the history of civil rights in New Orleans. Find out more at tepcenter.org

Special thanks to: The New Orleans Four: Leona Tate, Gail Etienne, Tessie Prevost Williams and Ruby Bridges. Retired Deputy US Marshalls Charlie Burke, Herschel Garner, and Al Butler. Tulane University. Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, Louisiana Center for Civil Rights and Social Justice, The US Marshals Museum.

We are especially grateful to Keith Plessy and Phoebe Fergusson for introducing us to this story, and to Brenda Square and Amistad Research Center History Department.

The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. We're part of the Radiotopia Network from PRX.

On the night of Summer Solstice 1986, Larry Harvey and Jerry James built and burned an eight-foot wooden figure on San Francisco's Baker Beach surrounded by a handful of friends. Burning Man was born.

This summer, the 39th annual Burning Man gathering begins to assemble on a vast dry lake bed in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, the nomadic ritual's home since 1990. An estimated 80,000 people will come.

During production of our Keepers series, chronicling activist archivists, rogue librarians and keepers of the culture and free flow of information, we received this message on the Keepers Hotline:

"Hello Kitchen Sisters, I am a rogue archivist, the archivist for Burning Man. Come to Burning Man headquarters and I’ll show you the collection. Cheers.” —LadyBee, Archivist & Art Collection Manager, Burning Man

How do you archive an event when one of it's driving principles is "leave no trace," where The Burning Man is in fact burned? What is being kept and who is keeping it? We journey into the archives of this legendary gathering to find out.

Produced by The Kitchen Sisters with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell, mixed by Jim McKee.

In honor of the Paris Olympics and the astounding contribution of the French to culture and art of the world, The Kitchen Sisters Present, Archive Fever: Henri Langlois and the history of the Cinémathèque Française, featuring Francis Ford Coppola, Wim Wenders, Tom Luddy, Lotte Eisner, Simone Signoret, Agnes Varda, Costa-Gavras, Barbet Schroeder.

Henri Langlois never made a single film — but he's considered one of the most important figures in the history of filmmaking. Possessed by what French philosopher Jacques Derrida called "archive fever," Langlois began obsessively collecting films in the 1930s and by the outset of World War II, he had one of the largest film collections in the world. The archive's impact on the history of French cinema is legendary, as is the legacy of its controversial keeper.

Langlois fell in love with film in his teens, just as silent films were being replaced by talkies. "In the early 30s they were destroying every silent movie," says film director Costa-Gavras, now president of Langlois' Cinémathèque Française. "He started collecting all those movies, not just to save them for the future, but to show them."

"Langlois educated a whole generation of film archivists and filmmakers," says filmmaker Wim Wenders. "He spread the idea of saving the memory of mankind that is in the history of cinema."

This story is part of The Keepers series — Activist archivists, rogue librarians, historians, collectors, curators — keepers of the culture and the free flow of information. Produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. Mixed by Jim McKee.