Introduction (continued)

During those years Americans who opposed segregation concentrated on providing young African Americans with the skills necessary to openly challenge discrimination. They founded a variety of vocational schools, colleges, and universities open to young people of all "races" and ethnicities. In time, a number of lawyers trained at these institutions began to chip away at segregation in court. With the support of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), they attacked "Jim Crow" laws—particularly laws that affected educational opportunities—case by case. They began with state-supported universities and then focused their attention on segregation in the nation’s public schools. 

On May 17, 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in their favor. The justices decided that separate schools for black and white children were not and could never be equal.

As fall neared, however, resistance to integration became more vocal in Little Rock and elsewhere. A number of African American students responded by withdrawing their applications. By the time school opened, only nine were prepared to attend Central High School—Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Patillo, Gloria Ray, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas, and Carlotta Walls. They became known as the "Little Rock Nine." Despite the talk on TV, over the radio, and in the newspapers, they did not believe that integration would lead to violence in Little Rock. Ernest Green recalls:

There hadn’t been any trouble expected, given the fact that there had been other schools in Arkansas that had been integrated—Fort Smith, Arkansas, and some others. The buses in Little Rock had been desegregated without any problem. The library was integrated, the medical school, and the law school at the University had admitted some blacks. So there was an expectation that there would be minimal problems, but nothing major that would put Little Rock on the map. The first indication that I had of it was the night before we were to go to school, the Labor Day Monday night. [Governor] Orval Faubus came on TV and indicated that he was calling out the [Arkansas] National Guard to prevent our entrance into Central because of what he thought were threats to our lives. He was doing it for our own "protection." Even at that time that was his line. He said that the troops would be out in front of the school and they would bar our entrance to Central—for our protection as well as for the protection and tranquility of the city.

"I am Elizabeth Eckford..." (audio 1 of 5)

 

"I am Elizabeth Eckford. I am part of the group that became known as the Little Rock Nine. Prior to the [de]segregation of Central, there had been one high school for whites, Central High School; one high school for blacks, Dunbar. I expected that there may be something more available to me at Central that was not available at Dunbar; that there might be more courses I could pursue; that there were more options available. I was not prepared for what actually happened."

 

 

"I was more concerned..." (audio 2 of 5)

 

"I was more concerned about what I would wear, whether we could finish my dress in time...what I was wearing was that okay, would it look good. The night before when the governor went on television and announced that he had called out the Arkansas National Guard, I thought that he had done this to insure the protection of all the students. We did not have a telephone, so inadvertently we were not contacted to let us know that Daisy Bates of NAACP had arranged for some ministers to accompany the students in a group. And so, it was I that arrived alone."

 

 

"On the morning of September 4..." (audio 3 of 5)

"On the morning of September 4th, my mother was doing what she usually did. My mother was making sure everybody’s hair looked right and everybody had their lunch money and their notebooks and things. But she did finally get quiet and we had family prayer. I remember my father walking back and forth. My father worked at night and normally he would have been asleep at that time, but he was awake and he was walking back and forth chomping on cigar that wasn’t lit."

 

"I expected I would go to school..." (audio 4 of 5)

"I expected that I would go to school as before on a city bus. So, I walked a few blocks to the bus stop, got on the bus, and rode to within two blocks of the school. I got off the bus and I noticed along the street that there were many more cars than usual. And I remember hearing the murmur of a crowd. But, when I got to the corner where the school was, I was reassured seeing these soldiers circling the school grounds. And I saw students going to school. I saw the guards break ranks as students approached the sidewalks so that they could pass through to get to school. And I approached the guard at the corner as I had seen some other students do and they closed ranks. So, I thought; 'Maybe I am not supposed to enter at this point.' So, I walked further down the line of guards to where there was another sidewalk and I attempted to pass through there. But when I stepped up, they crossed rifles. And again I said to myself: 'So maybe I’m supposed to go down to where the main entrance is.' So, I walked toward the center of the street and when I got to about the middle and I approached the guard he directed me across the street into the crowd. It was only then that I realized that they were barring me, that I wouldn’t go to school."

 

"As I stepped out into the street..." (audio 5 of 5)

"As I stepped out into the street, the people who had been across the street started surging forward behind me. So, I headed in the opposite direction to where there was another bus stop. Safety to me meant getting to that bus stop. It seemed like I sat there for a long time before the bus came. In the meantime, people were screaming behind me what I would have described as a crowd before, to my ears sounded like a mob."

 

 

In Her Own Words: text-only version of her story

"I am Elizabeth Eckford. I am part of the group that became known as the Little Rock Nine. Prior to the
[de]segregation of Central, there had been one high school for whites, Central High School; one high school for blacks, Dunbar. I expected that there may be something more available to me at Central that was not available at Dunbar; that there might be more courses I could pursue; that there were more options available. I was not prepared for what actually happened."

"I was more concerned about what I would wear, whether we could finish my dress in time...what I was wearing was that okay, would it look good. The night before when the governor went on television and announced that he had called out the Arkansas National Guard, I thought that he had done this to insure the protection of all the students. We did not have a telephone, so inadvertently we were not contacted to let us know that Daisy Bates of NAACP had arranged for some ministers to accompany the students in a group. And so, it was I that arrived alone."

"On the morning of September 4th, my mother was doing what she usually did. My mother was making sure everybody’s hair looked right and everybody had their lunch money and their notebooks and things. But she did finally get quiet and we had family prayer. I remember my father walking back and forth. My father worked at night and normally he would have been asleep at that time, but he was awake and he was walking back and forth chomping on cigar that wasn’t lit."

"I expected that I would go to school as before on a city bus. So, I walked a few blocks to the bus stop, got on the bus, and rode to within two blocks of the school. I got off the bus and I noticed along the street that there were many more cars than usual. And I remember hearing the murmur of a crowd. But, when I got to the corner where the school was, I was reassured seeing these soldiers circling the school grounds. And I saw students going to school. I saw the guards break ranks as students approached the sidewalks so that they could pass through to get to school. And I approached the guard at the corner as I had seen some other students do and they closed ranks. So, I thought; 'Maybe I am not supposed to enter at this point.' So, I walked further down the line of guards to where there was another sidewalk and I attempted to pass through there. But when I stepped up, they crossed rifles. And again I said to myself; 'So maybe I’m supposed to go down to where the main entrance is.' So, I walked toward the center of the street and when I got to about the middle and I approached the guard he directed me across the street into the crowd. It was only then that I realized that they were barring me, that I wouldn’t go to school."

"As I stepped out into the street, the people who had been across the street started surging forward behind me. So, I headed in the opposite direction to where there was another bus stop. Safety to me meant getting to that bus stop. It seemed like I sat there for a long time before the bus came. In the meantime, people were screaming behind me what I would have described as a crowd before, to my ears sounded like a mob."

 

 

The Arkansas National Guard

For 17 days, the Arkansas National Guard kept the "Little Rock Nine" from entering Central High, but did nothing to disperse the crow of angry whites that gathered outside the building. Perlesta Hollingsworth, an African American who lived near Central High, told a reporter many years later, "The shocking thing to me in 1957 was the number of whites who didn’t participate in the aggression, who wouldn’t do anything but look. Neighbors would express dismay, but wouldn’t do anything, wouldn’t speak out against it, would go ahead and close their doors to it."

Marcia Webb was among those whites. She was a student at Central High at the time and a bystander the day the mob harassed Elizabeth Eckford. She was also a witness to the crowds that surrounded the school in the days that followed. As an adult, she reflected on the choices she made then:

The things that I thought about when I was in high school were the things that most kids did in the 50s. . .the football team. . .dances. . . .I think it was a white person’s world—probably a white man’s world. Most of the blacks you had any contact with in 1957 were your household workers, sanitation department helpers, and that would be the only contact you would have. But I remember the picture in the newspaper of Elizabeth Eckford with the jeering there and you never once thought about what was going on with Elizabeth Eckford. You were glad there weren’t any violent demonstrations, you were glad no one was hurt physically. But then I realized what hurt can come from words, from silence even, from just being ignored. And when I think about it now I think about it with regret. I’m sorry to say now looking back that what was happening didn’t have more significance and I didn’t take more of an active role. But I was interested in the things that most kids are.

A Federal Court Order

On Friday, September 10th, U.S. District Judge Ronald N. Davies ruled that the state could not continue to block integration. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus responded to the court order by withdrawing the Arkansas National Guard.

The following Monday, about 100 Little Rock police officers placed wooden barricades around Central High as over a thousand angry white men and women from Arkansas and surrounding states gathered in front of the building. To avoid the mob, the African American students entered the school through a side door. After learning the students were in the building, the crowd went on a rampage.

By midmorning, the mob had attacked both black and white journalists, broken windows and doors in the school, and come close to capturing the “Little Rock Nine.” The police had to smuggle them out of the school for their own safety. Melba Patillo later said of that day:

The first time I was able to enter Central High School, what I felt inside was stark raving fear—terrible, watching, awful fear….There are no words for how I felt inside. I had known no pain like that because I did not know what I had done wrong. You see, when you’re fifteen years old and someone’s going to hit you or hurt you, you want to know what you did wrong. Although I knew the differences between black and white, I didn’t know the penalties one paid for being black at that time.

President Eisenhower's Response

The next day, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, outraged by the violence, ordered the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock. On September 25th, American soldiers not only dispersed the mob but also escorted the "Little Rock Nine" to school. This time, Melba Patillo recalls, "I went in not through the side doors, but up the front stairs, and there was a feeling of pride and hope that yes, this is the United States; yes, there is a reason I salute the flag; and it’s going to be okay."

Eisenhower's decision surprised many Americans. He did not favor integration. Born in 1890, he grew up in a segregated society and served for over 30 years in a segregated army. Not long after the Brown decision, he remarked, "You can’t change people’s hearts merely by laws." He also told reporters that he could not imagine a situation in which he would use federal troops to enforce integration. Yet after watching events in Little Rock, he ordered federal troops to the city to enforce the law. He told the American people: "Our personal opinions about the [Brown] decision have no bearing on the matter of enforcement…Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts."

The First African American Graduates from Central High

In the weeks that followed, the 101st Airborne restored order in the streets. But neither the soldiers nor school officials had much effect on the small but determined group of white students who insulted, humiliated, and physically threatened the “Little Rock Nine” day after day. Still, all but one of the students made it through the year. And in May, Ernest Green became the first African American to graduate from Central High.

Singer/actor Paul Robeson was one of many Americans who followed the crisis in Little Rock. In his autobiography, he says of Green and the other eight African American students:

Dear children of Little Rock—you and your parents and the Negro people of your community have lifted our hearts and renewed our resolve that full freedom shall now be ours….You are our children, but the peoples of the whole world rightly claim you, too. They have seen your faces, and the faces of those who hate you, and they are on your side. They see in you those qualities which parents everywhere want their children to have, and their best wishes…go out to you.

Yes, America—these are your children, too, you ought to be very proud of them. The American dream—the spirit of Jefferson and Lincoln, of Emerson and Twain—is given new life by the children of Little Rock. These children must ever be cherished, for they are not only the hope and the promise of my people: with them stands the destiny of democracy in America.

The Next Fall...

Despite such praise at home and abroad as from Robeson, the crisis did not end with Green’s education. Reporter Joan I. Duffy of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, explains:

That summer, Faubus and the segregationists had pushed through the legislature a new law allowing school districts to close schools rather than integrate.

The Little Rock School Board voted to close the city’s four high schools for the 1958-59 school year, sending thousands of families scrambling to find alternative education for their children….

No one knows how many students, unable to find an alternative school after the closure, dropped out and never came back. Newspaper accounts of the time described a rash of moving vans taking families out of Little Rock in search of schools.

“Some 3,700 children of high school age have been affected by closings, 100 of them Negroes,” a United Press International dispatch reported….

Several churches cobbled together classes and a private, all-white school enrolled 917.

Closing the schools and the “purge” of 44 teachers by the school board for perceived support of integration ignited the outrage of Little Rock’s moderates. They were led by 76-year-old Adolphine Fletcher Terry, a civicly active society matron who had organized the city’s public library system. She organized an army of 2,000 women—all of them white. By the Spring of 1959, a recall movement ousted three segregationists from the school board and replaced them with moderates. The schools re-opened in the fall of 1959.

Expanding Citizenship

Expanding Citizenship
from Choosing to Participate Study Guide

 

The crisis in Little Rock was a turning point for many Americans—particularly young Americans. It raised their political consciousness and expanded their "universe of obligation." It also revealed the power and the responsibilities citizens have in a democracy.

By 1960, some young Americans, both black and white, were heading to southern states to register black voters, integrate public facilities, or participate in civil rights marches. Others tried to make a difference by getting involved in politics. Many young people, like Doris Kearns Goodwin, were no longer satisfied to be "observers of injustice." They undertook to right wrongs both at home and abroad. Their idealism came at a time when a new president was taking office.

John F. Kennedy succeeded Dwight Eisenhower as President of the United States in 1961. From the start, he inspired the enthusiasm of young people by urging them to take action. In his inaugural address, he admonished them and other Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," and urged his "fellow citizens of the world" to "ask not what America can do for you, but together what we can do for the freedom of man."

A new idea exemplified the spirit Kennedy celebrated in his address. That idea is said to have had its beginnings in an off-hand remark he made on the campaign trail. When Kennedy arrived at the University of Michigan late one October night, he was greeted by 10,000 students who had waited for hours just to see him. Speaking without prepared notes, Kennedy issued a challenge: "How many of you are willing to spend two years in Africa or Latin America or Asia working for the United States and freedom? How many of you who are going to be doctors are willing to spend your days in Ghana; technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the foreign service and spend your lives traveling around the world? On your willingness . . . to contribute part of your life to this country will depend the answer as to whether we as a free country can compete."

Graduate students Alan and Judith Guskin were in the crowd that night. Several days later they heard Chester Bowles, Kennedy’s foreign policy advisor, speak of the work that his son and daughter-in-law were doing in an African village. Alan Guskin later wrote, "Kennedy had inspired us, and we were ready to make a commitment. Perhaps others were, too. Still, we never expected what was about to happen."

In a letter to the student newspaper, the Guskins expressed their willingness to serve abroad and urged others interested in doing so to contact them. Alan Guskin recalls:

The phone in our apartment rang constantly, spontaneous discussions dominated the campus, and we did what we could to organize a response. We founded a group called Americans Committed to World Responsibility. In less than two weeks, 800 students had signed petitions committing themselves to spend several years of their lives serving in developing countries, most of them students who had never previously been involved in campus activism of any kind.

A few weeks later, the group presented Kennedy with the petitions. Just weeks after his inauguration, on March 1, 1961, he responded by issuing an executive order establishing the Peace Corps. He named Sargent Shriver its first director. In the months that followed, thousands of young people enlisted, including Alan and Judy Guskin.

Both Kennedy and Shriver were aware of the growing civil rights movement in the United States. They knew that the Peace Corps would have to take a stand on an issue that was polarizing the nation. They chose to support equality for all Americans by recruiting volunteers from "every race and walk of life." In her history of the Peace Corps, Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman notes that "the Peace Corps actively sought to hire as many qualified African Americans as would apply, and to convince many who might never have considered applying to do so. It did so as much for the sake of young white Americans as for young black Americans: experiencing one another as equals was prerequisite to accepting the essential equality of all humankind and proving that America could live up to its ideals."

As part of that commitment to equality, Shriver announced that the Peace Corps would train volunteers only at integrated colleges and universities. It would not bring volunteers to schools where "off-campus racial attitudes" would limit their freedom. For Shriver, these policies were essential to achieving the goals of the Peace Corps. He later wrote:

When the Peace Corps goes abroad, it spreads the ideal of a free and democratic society Its strategic premise is the sense of concern that every member has shown by the act of volunteering. The Peace Corps’ secret weapon is example. This example proclaims that in America, the color of a volunteer’s skin, or a human’s religious or political beliefs, do not determine personal dignity and worth. We have sent black Americans to white men’s countries, white Americans to black men’s countries. We were told that we could not send Protestants to certain parts of Catholic countries in Latin America, and that we could not send Jews to Arab countries. But we sent them. Rarely have these decisions spawned discontent.

We never meant for Peace Corps volunteers to go abroad as promoters of a particular political theory or economic system, much less a religious creed. But that did not mean they were without a mission. The volunteer goes overseas as a willing and skilled worker. He also goes as a representative of the ideals that America, with all its imperfections, embodies better than any society in our time. It is the idea that free and committed men and women can cross, even transcend, boundaries of culture and language, of foreign tradition, and great disparities of wealth and culture, to work in harmony with one another. The Peace Corps has a commitment to overcome old hostilities and entrenched nationalisms, to bring knowledge where ignorance has dominated, to challenge traditions that may enslave, even as it respects the societies from which they emerge. The Peace Corps was designed for different cultures to meet on the common ground of service to human welfare and personal worth, so that men and women might share what is valuable in the spirit of each.

Thomas J. Scanlon served in the Peace Corps in Chile from 1961 to 1963. In recounting his experiences organizing cooperative development projects there, he suggests how he and other volunteers tried to reflect the nation’s democratic ideals:

. . . .There is need for a democratic approach from the very beginning. You must listen patiently to the people, wait for them to make their own judgments and respect these judgments even if you feel they’re about to make a mistake. If this mistake would be from ignorance, you can try to educate. If from stubbornness, you can try to demonstrate results. But if their decision is in full view of the facts and in good faith, there is only one thing to do and that is to let them go ahead and do it their own way. You shouldn’t interfere by dictating. Perhaps they will prove you wrong.

For a Peace Corps volunteer, democracy is more than an ideal or a political system. You can have both without real democracy. For you, democracy must be an approach to development. It must be an attitude you maintain when dealing with the people which assures them that the problem is theirs to solve. For the people, democracy is their ability to determine their own future. It is a fragile plant which can grow steadily if it’s cultivated, or be damaged dangerously by a major act of impatience.

Since the establishment of the Peace Corps in 1961, over 150,000 Americans have volunteered for service in the 132 countries that have participated in the program. Many of them returned some with a new commitment to democracy and a deeper understanding of their links not only to other Americans but also to people in other parts of the world. They remained eager to make a difference in the world. A number of them have taken a leadership role in a variety of non-profit groups, education, government, and the foreign service—in fact, about ten percent of each class of foreign service officers are returned volunteers. The successes of these volunteers gave rise to the idea of a "domestic Peace Corps." In 1963, Kennedy proposed such a program of voluntary service at home. Known as VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), it became part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s "war on poverty" program in 1964. What ideals and values prompted the establishment of the Peace Corps? What role did ordinary citizens play in making the Peace Corps a reality?

 

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Connections questions for this reading

• Review Sargent Shriver’s account of the goals of the Peace Corps. How important is the idea that "free and committed men and women can cross, even transcend, boundaries of culture and language, of foreign tradition, and great disparities of wealth and culture, to work in harmony with one another" toward democracy? Social justice? What does Thomas Scanlon’s account suggest about the difficulties carrying out that idea? What does American history teach us about the importance of doing so?

• What inspired young people to join the Peace Corps? To what extent did it provide volunteers with an opportunity to walk even briefly in someone else’s shoes? What do you think they learned from that experience? How do you think it affected the way volunteers like Scanlon viewed themselves and others?

• The push to end segregation intensified during Kennedy’s administration. Find out about the civil rights movement during those years. What coalitions that brought Americans together were built during those years? What role did the federal government play in efforts to expand voting rights and equality of opportunity?

• The Peace Corps inspired VISTA. It also inspired similar volunteer organizations in nearly every industrialized nation. Why do you think the idea has spread? What does that spread suggest about the way nations learn not only from their own experiences but also from the experiences of others?

NBC Roundtable Discussion with Central High School Students

NBC Roundtable Discussion with Central High School Students
Moderated by Jorunn Ricketts, 1957
from Choosing to Participate Study Guide

 

In reflecting on what he learned from the crisis, the Reverend Colber Cartwright observed, "The lesson is that people themselves had to take responsibility for what they wanted their community to be. To do so. they had to talk about the issues that divided them." Many Americans in the 1950s had never spoken at length to people from other ethnic and racial groups. Sociologist David Schoem has called that kind of isolation a "human and national tragedy"—one that encourages a "heavy reliance on stereotypes, gossip, rumor, and fear" to shape one's lack of knowledge. How do people then (or now) break that isolation and learn to walk even briefly in someone else's shoes?

That was a question few people in Little Rock or elsewhere asked in the 1950s. As a result, black and white students at Central High had few opportunities to express their fears, hopes, or concerns. They received dozens of memos from school officials urging them to be "good citizens." But their teachers avoided any discussion of what it meant to be a good citizen in Little Rock in 1957. In class, teachers followed the curriculum. They avoided talking about the mob outside the building or the harassment of the "Little Rock Nine" within.

The most famous photograph taken at Central High that year showed a white student screaming at Elizabeth Eckford on the day she confronted the mob. Elizabeth Huckaby, the vice-principal at Central High, said of the photo:

No one seemed to be able to identify the girl—and small wonder. We were not used to seeing our students look like that. But by noon on Firday, I discovered she was someone I knew, and I sent for her in the afternoon. When she readily admitted she was the screaming girl I told her how distressed I was to hear it since hatred destroys the people who hate. She shrugged. Well, that was the way she felt, she said. Undeterred by her shrug, I said that I hoped I'd never see her pretty face so distorted again, that I never would have recognized the ugly face in the picture as her's. Wasted breath.

A few weeks later, NBC invited students at Central High to participate in a roundtable discussion moderated by Jorunn Ricketts. It was to be aired nationally. A close friend of the girl that Elizabeth Huckaby called into her office took part in that discussion. Her name was Sammy Dean Parker. The excerpt that follows focuses on Sammy’s comments as well as those made by three other white students-Kay Bacon, Robin Woods, and Joe Fox-and two black students-Ernest Green and Minnijean Brown.

MRS RICKETS: Do you think it is possible to start working this out on a more sensible basis than violent demonstration?

SAMMY: No. I don’t because the South has always been against racial mixing and I think they will fight this thing to the end. . . . We fight for our freedom—that’s one thing. And we don’t have any freedom anymore.

ERNEST: Sammy, you say you don’t have any freedom. I wonder what you mean by it—that you don’t have any freedom? You are guaranteed your freedom in the Bill of Rights and your Constitution. You have the freedom of speech—l noticed that has been exercised a whole lot in Little Rock. The freedom of petition, the freedom of religion and the other freedoms are guaranteed to you. As far as freedom, I think that if anybody should kick about freedoms, it should be us. Because I think we have been given a pretty bad side on this thing as far as freedom.

SAMMY: Do you call those troops freedom? I don’t. And I also do not call it free when you are being escorted into the school every morning.

ERNEST: You say why did the troops come here? It is because our government—our state government—went against the federal law. Our country is set up so that we have 48 states and no one state has the ability to overrule our nation’s government. I thought that was what our country was built around. I mean, that is why we fight. We fought in World War II together—the fellows that I know died in World War II, they died in the Korean War. I mean, why should my friends go out there and die for a cause called "democracy" when I can’t exercise my rights-tell me that.

JOE: Well, Sammy, I don’t know what freedom has been taken away from you because the truth there-l know as a senior myself—the troops haven’t kept me from going to my classes or participating in any school activity. I mean, they’re there just to keep order in case—l might use the term "hot-heads"—get riled up. But I think as long as-if parents would just stay out of it and let the children of the school at Central High figure it out for themselves, I think it would be a whole lot better. I think the students are mature enough to figure it out for themselves. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll lay the whole blame of this trouble in Governor Faubus’s lap.

SAMMY: I think we knew before this ever started that someday we were going to have to integrate the schools. And I think our Governor was trying to protect all of us when he called out the National Guard-and he was trying to prepare us, I think.

ERNEST: . . . Well, I have to disagree I know a student that’s over there with us, Elizabeth [Eckford], and that young lady, she walked two blocks, I guess—as you all know—and the mob was behind her. Did the troops break up the mob?

ROBIN: And when Elizabeth had to walk down in front of the school I was there and I saw that. And may I say, I was very ashamed—l felt like crying—because she was so brave when she did that. And we just weren’t behaving ourselves—just jeering her. I think if we had had any sort of decency, we wouldn’t have acted that way. But I think if everybody would just obey the Golden Rule—do unto others as you have others do unto you—that might be the solution. How would you like to have to walk down the street with everybody yelling behind you like they yelled behind Elizabeth?

MRS. RICKETTS: Sammy, why do these children not want to go to school with Negroes?

SAMMY: Well, I think it is mostly race mixing.

MRS. RICKETTS: Race mixing? What do you mean?

SAMMY: Well, marrying each other.

MINNIJEAN: Hold your hand up. I’m brown, you are white. What’s the differences. We are all of the same thoughts. You’re thinking about your boy—he’s going to the Navy. I’m thinking about mine—he’s in the Air Force. We think about the same thing.

SAMMY: I’ll have to agree with you

MINNIJEAN: Kay, Joe and Robin—do you know anything about me, or is it just that your mother has told you about Negroes?

MRS. RICKETTS: . . . Have you ever really made an effort to find out what they’re like?

KAY: Not until today.

SAMMY: Not until today.

MRS. RICKETTS: And what do you think about it after today?

KAY: Well, you know that my parents and a lot of the other students and their parents thank the Negroes aren’t equal to us. But—l don’t know. It seems like they are, to me.

SAMMY: These people are-we’ll have to admit that.

ERNEST: I think, like we’re doing today, discussing our different views. If the people of Little Rock would get together I believe they would find out a different story-—and try to discuss the thing instead of getting out in the street and kicking people around and calling names-and that sort of thing. If people got together it would be smoothed over.

KAY: I think that if our friends had been getting in this discussion today, I think that maybe some of them—not all of them—in time, they would change their mend. But probably some of them would change their mind today.

After the roundtable discussion, life at Central High went on much as it had before. A small group of white students continued to harass the "Little Rock Nine," while the majority looked the other way. Still there were a few signs of change. Terrence Roberts, one of the "Little Rock Nine," was assigned to Robin Woods’s algebra class. Realizing he didn’t have a math book, she made "a gut-level decision" and pulled her desk over to his so they could share her book. There was "a gasp of disbelief." For the rest of the year, segregationists harassed Woods and her family.

 

The Grace Lorch Story

The Grace Lorch Story
from The New York Times, 1957
from Choosing to Participate Study Guide

When fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Eckford reached Central High that first day, she found herself surrounded by an angry crowd. She tried to enter the building only to be turned away by soldiers armed with bayonets. Unsure of what to do and terrified by the mob, Eckford quickly headed for a bus stop even as the crowd continued to spit and scream, taunt and jeer. As she sat on a bench with tears streaming down her face, Benjamin Fine of The New York Times tried to comfort her. Then a white woman, Grace Lorch, suddenly confronted the mob. Fine reported:

"She’s scared," Mrs. Lorch said. "She’s just a little girl." She appealed to the men and women around her.

"Why don’t you calm down?" she asked. "I’m not here to fight with you. Six months from now you’ll be ashamed at what you’re doing."

"Go home, you’re just one of them," Mrs. Lorch was told.

She escorted the Negro student to the other side of the street, but the crowd followed.

"Won’t somebody please call a taxi?" she pleaded. She was met with hoot calls and jeers.

Finally, after being jostled by the crowd, she worked her way to the street corner, and the two boarded a bus.

Seven other Negro students tried to get into the school. They came together, accompanied by four white ministers. Dunbar Ogden, president of the Greater Little Rock Ministerial Association, acted as spokes man for the group.

"Sorry, we cannot admit Negro students," the officers told them. The crowd dispersed slowly. Many of the students who had waited outside the school building to see whether the Negroes would enter, started to go into school. They had said that if the Negroes went in, they would go out.