BY the time we arrived home from Cincinnati, my life was already upside down. I was living with one concern—preparing to take part in the integration of Central High School. It consumed much of the time and energy of my entire family. I could see it was consuming the energy of the entire city. Nobody I spoke with or watched on local television or heard on the radio talked of anything else.
I was drowning in unfamiliar activities and sounds—the sound of the constantly ringing telephone, of people talking loud in my ear and expressing their views about integration, of reporters’ urgent voices describing what integration might do to the city and the South, and of official-looking adults lecturing me about integration for hours in closed meetings.
Meetings—my life was filled with meetings, boring meetings with the white superintendent of schools, the school board, with Central High School officials, with NAACP officials. For the first time, I met Mrs. Daisy Bates, a petite and smartly dressed, steely-eyed woman who was the Arkansas state president of the NAACP. She seemed very calm and brave considering the caravans of segregationists said to be driving past her house and tossing firebombs and rocks through her windows. They saw her as their enemy not only because of her position but because she and her husband owned the Arkansas State Press, a newspaper that was the sole voice for our community.
I watched her in action as she spoke up on our behalf during one of those first meetings with members of the school administration. They made it clear they were not our friends and that it would be better if we changed our minds and returned to our own school. Right away they warned us that we would not be permitted to participate in any extracurricular activities. Absolutely not, voices chimed in in unison, and their collective heads shook no. Would we like to withdraw because of that fact, they asked. Although we all were startled by their declaration and their question, we took only a moment to reply. We would continue no matter what.
The only good thing about the meetings was that they allowed me to visit with my friends—the other students who would be integrating Central. I had known most of them all my life. At one point there had been sixteen others, but some of them chose not to participate because of the threats of violence. It frightened me to see our number dwindling. Still, I was delighted with those I knew were definitely going.
In the end, there were nine of us. Ernest Green, the oldest and a senior, was a member of my church. His warm eyes and quick smile greeted me each week at Sunday School. His aunt, Mrs. Gravely, had taught me history in junior high.
Tall, thin Terrence Roberts was a junior like me, and a friend since first grade. He was a very verbal person who could be counted on to give the funniest, most intelligent analysis of any situation. I adored his way of always humming a cheerful tune when he wasn’t talking.
Jefferson Thomas was a quiet, soft-spoken athlete—tops in his class. His sense of humor was subtle, the kind that makes you giggle aloud when you’re not supposed to.
Elizabeth Eckford was petite, a very quiet, private person who had smiled and waved at me across the hallway at our old school. She was regal in her bearing and, like all of us, very serious about her studies.
Thelma Mothershed and I were friends who saw each other frequently. Small like Elizabeth, but with a very pale complexion, her wise eyes peered through thick-lensed horn-rimmed glasses. She had a heart problem that, at times, changed her pallor to a purplish hue and forced her to rest on her haunches to catch her breath.
Best of all, my special friend Minnijean Brown was going. Since she lived only a block away from me, we saw each other almost every day. We had much in common; both of us were tall for our age, and we shared daydreams—our worship of Johnny Mathis and Nat Cole, and our desire to sing.
Carlotta Walls was an athlete, very sleek and wonderfully energetic. Everything she said or did was quickly executed. She was a girl-next-door type, always in a good mood, always ready to try something new.
Gloria Ray was another member of my Sunday School class. Delicate in stature, she was as meticulous about her attire as she was about her studies. Her all-knowing eyes grew even more intense as she spoke in softly measured words.
We integrating students shared many things in common. All of our parents were strict, no-nonsense types. Several of them were teachers and preachers, or held well-established positions in other professions. All our folks were hardworking people who had struggled to own their homes, to provide a stable life for their families. We shared many of the same family values traditional to all small-town Americans.
Our parents demanded that we behave appropriately at home and in public. I couldn’t imagine that any one of us would ever talk back to our folks or other adults. All of us were churchgoing; all our parents demanded good grades in school. Although none of us had a lot of money, we had pride in our appearance. Most of all, we were individualists with strong opinions. Each of us planned to go to college.
I felt comfortable being with them, because they were the kind of people my mother allowed me to associate with. And after a period of being together so much, I began to feel as though we had formed some kind of group—an odd family of people with one goal: to get inside Central High and stay there for the school year.
ALL my friends, adults and children alike, developed some strange need to discuss their feelings about integration. Even strangers stopped me on the street. The opinions weren’t always positive, even among my own people, as I discovered at my church one Sunday.
I was startled when a woman I’d seen often enough but didn’t really know began lecturing me. For a moment I feared she was going to haul off and hit me. She was beside herself with anger. I could barely get my good morning in because she was talking very loud, attracting attention as she told me I was too fancy for my britches and that other people in our community would pay for my uppity need to be with white folks.
Taken aback by her anger, I stood perfectly still, stunned. I knew very well I couldn’t talk back to adults, so I kept my mouth shut even though I wanted to tell her a thing or two. Just as I thought I couldn’t hold my words in a moment longer, a family friend walked by and grabbed hold of her arm. He wouldn’t let her get another word in edgewise as he explained that he believed Little Rock white folks were ready for a change, and we were just reminding them it was time by registering at Central High.
I hoped he was right about whites being ready for change. At first it seemed they had accepted the limited integration plan. I had heard only a few of my people say they expected a big problem. Oh, sure, nobody said it would be easy, but most thought it would be like integrating the buses; there would be quiet fussing and complaining and a few threats from the white folks, then things would settle down. But just before school started, we noticed in the newspaper half-page invitations to big “states’ rights” rallies where important white people urged everybody to fight integration.
At one such rally, Georgia Governor Marvin Griffin addressed a statewide meeting of about four hundred people who came for a dinner. He attacked the Supreme Court decision favoring integration, saying it took away the rights of states to govern themselves. The newspaper said Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus would have breakfast with Griffin the next morning. I worried about that meeting because I thought he would sway Faubus to do things his way. That could change our plans again. One more change and I’d be ready to pack and move to anywhere, USA.
Since I had arrived home from vacation, I didn’t know from minute to minute or day to day where I would be starting my school year. The on-again, off-again calls from the NAACP were beginning to make me nervous, even though I knew they were doing their best to help us.
On Thursday, August 29, 1957, just five days before school started, a headline in the Arkansas Gazette read:
Peering above the newspaper, Grandma sighed as she told me I’d better get ready to go back to my old school because it seemed as if Mrs. Thomason’s segregationist group had convinced Judge Reed that kids from our community and white students were buying guns. Governor Faubus backed up Mrs. Thomason’s testimony, saying he knew personally she was telling the truth. So Reed believed her and ruled against integration, saying it would cause violence.
I felt sad and angry that there was no hope things would ever get any better. I called my friends and got set for a year I assumed would be kind of okay because of the added privileges and respect granted a junior. I figured integration had been put off for that school year and maybe forever. Meanwhile, I was rethinking my plan to entice my family to move to Cincinnati. But on Sunday evening, September 1, two days before school was to start, word came from the NAACP not to register at our regular high school. NAACP lawyers had already gone to federal court to get us into Central High. They expected a favorable ruling.
ON Monday, September 2, Labor Day, our family gathered at Auntie Mae’s house for the last picnic of the summer. She was mother’s sister, a wonderfully round, cuddly woman with flowing wavy hair and a warm smile. A real live wire, she liked to play pranks on people and tell the kind of naughty jokes that made Mother blush and cover my ears.
Her laughter and upbeat attitude always cheered me up. People said I had some of her feisty ways in me. I was certain my Auntie Mae could do just about anything. “Rules are made to be broken,” she said. “If there’s anyone who can integrate that school, it’s you. You’re just sassy enough to pull it off.”
“Although I don’t know why you’d want to go where you’re not wanted,” said Uncle Charlie, Mother’s brother, puffing on his cigar as he hung his fedora on the hat rack by the front door.
“To heck with them,” said Auntie Mae. “Besides, I heard a rumor that Governor Faubus is gonna send the National Guard over to the school.”
“How do you know that?”
“Mamie Johnson’s cousin cooks for that school. They called to tell her where she has to check in tomorrow morning to get past the soldiers.” That began a free-for-all about integration. It was just what I didn’t want to hear. So I drifted off into my daydreams about Vince, the cute boy I liked. I pictured what it might have been like to have him pick me up in his new car at our old school where everybody could see.
Later on that night, Grandma thought we should listen to the governor’s speech on television. To our amazement, he announced he had sent troops to Central. And then he said, “They will not act as segregationists or integrationists, but as soldiers called to active duty to carry out their assigned tasks.” Then he spoke the words that made chills creep up and down my spine. “. . . But I must state here in all sincerity that it is my opinion, yes, even a conviction, that it will not be possible to restore or maintain order and protect the lives and property of the citizens if forcible integration is carried out tomorrow in the schools of this community.”
“The governor has finally flipped his wig,” Mother Lois said, glaring at the moon-faced man on the TV screen.
“He’s stirring up trouble by talking about trouble,” Grandma added. She was right, as usual. Following that speech, calls from telephone hecklers began to drive us wild. Several times during the days and nights before school opened, those voices had growled at me. “Niggers don’t belong in our schools. You-all are made for hanging,” one harsh voice shouted the first time I picked up the receiver.
On the night of the governor’s speech, the phone didn’t stop ringing. One caller said he knew our address and would be right over to bomb the house. Grandma went directly to her room, where she took the shotgun she called Mr. Higgenbottom from its leather case in the back of her closet. That night, she set up her guard post near the window to the side yard where she thought we were most vulnerable. She sat in her rocking chair beside the antique mahogany end table given her by her mother.
After a moment for contemplation and prayer, she stretched her embroidery work tightly over its hoop. With her needles and threads, she settled down for the night with Mr. Higgenbottom across her lap. She sat as erect as those heroic soldiers I’d seen in magazine pictures.
When Mother offered to spell her, she told her to get a good night’s sleep so she could be fresh for her teaching job. As I tried to fall asleep, I could hear Grandma rocking back and forth in her chair, singing hymns that must have given her the strength to stay alert all night.
That night in my diary I wrote to God:
Maybe going to Central High isn’t such a good idea after all. It is costing my family a lot of agony and energy, and I haven’t even attended one day yet. Will Grandma always have to sit up guarding us. She can’t go on sitting there forever. What will become of us. Maybe I should start my plan for moving to Cincinnati. Please give me some sign of what I am to do.
Late Monday evening, the shrill ring of the phone awakened me. Mother took the call from the NAACP telling us not to attend school the next day, Tuesday. We were to wait until we were notified before going to Central. Early the next morning I caught Grandmother nodding at her guard post as I went out to pick up the newspaper. The headlines told the story:
I wondered why some news reports said Faubus called the troops to keep us away from school. He had said in his speech they weren’t there to enforce segregation. Nevertheless, the word came once more that under no circumstances were we to go near Central High. The governor had officially forbidden us to go to Central, and whites were forbidden to go to Horace Mann, our school. Both places were officially off limits.
At breakfast, Grandma India said she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why he’d make our school off limits to whites, but it was an intriguing thing to do. I could see the relief in her weary face when we knew I wouldn’t be going to school. She said it was a perfectly good idea to pause and take stock. We were in no rush to get into that school.
So all day Tuesday we did just that—we took stock. Lots of people in our community figured they should get a word in, and they did, by telephone and in person. A few even had the nerve to drop over without calling to give us their opinions.
My father dropped by and caused quite an uproar. He stormed into the house demanding that I stay away from Central because his boss was threatening to take his job away. Grandma India quieted him. “Maybe our children getting a good education is much more important than your job.” He rolled his eyes at her but left after that. On the way out he was shouting he’d be back to take me away from Mother Lois if there was any trouble.
I guess Grandma saw I had hurt feelings because she put her arms around my shoulders and said, “I figure the vote is running half and half. But you’re in luck—God’s voting on your side—so march forward, girl, and don’t look back.”
Tuesday afternoon, School Superintendent Virgil Blossom called a meeting of the nine of us students and our folks. During that meeting, the tall, stocky, grim-faced Blossom breathlessly instructed our parents not to come with us to school the next day. “It will be easier to protect the children if adults aren’t there,” he said.
The looks on the faces of the adults told me they all were frightened. Not one among them seemed certain of what they were doing.
As we arrived home, the man on the radio explained Federal Judge Ronald Davies’s ruling, ordering integrated classes to begin on Wednesday. The phone was ringing off the hook. Our minister said some of the church members were forming a group made up of people from several churches. They would pray and work for peace in the city. At the same time, he said, they would be ready to help us if we needed it.
The call just after midnight from the NAACP didn’t really disturb us because we were already receiving a series of late night calls from segregationists who were loud and vulgar in their views. Mrs. Bates said we would meet at Twelfth and Park. The school was between Fourteenth and Sixteenth on Park. Perhaps we would be accompanied by several ministers; some of them would be white. She named Reverend Dunbar Ogden, Jr., the white president of the interracial Ministerial Alliance, and two of our ministers, Reverend Z. Z. Driver of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and Reverend Harry Bass of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
BY Wednesday morning, September 4, I could hardly believe it was really happening—I was going to Central High School. As I prepared breakfast before leaving home on that first morning, Grandmother India stood over my shoulder watching while I cracked the breakfast eggs for poaching.
Every radio in the house was tuned to the stations that gave frequent news reports. The urgent voices grabbed our attention whether we wanted them to or not. I’d never heard the news read that often, except when there was a tornado.
Hundreds of Little Rock citizens are gathered in front of Central High School awaiting the arrival of the Negro children. We’re told people have come from as far away as Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia to join forces to halt integration.
Governor Faubus continues to predict that blood will run in the streets if Negroes force integration in this peaceful capital city of just over a hundred thousand citizens.
Grandma India said seeing as how Federal Judge Davies had ruled for integration, the governor was forced to listen. She was certain Governor Faubus was a God-fearing man who would not defy federal law. I smiled agreement, nodding my head, but I wasn’t as confident as she was that Governor Faubus was going to follow the rules. She always saw the good in everybody. It made me feel so proud when people said I behaved and looked like her. There were happy lines around her mouth that made her face always appear as though she were about to break into a sweet smile, even when her words told me she was displeased with my behavior. “You’re not gonna let white people make you nervous, are you? They’re the same as us, God’s children.”
“It’s not only being with the whites. Central isn’t just any school, you know, Grandma.” I wondered what it would be like to attend school inside that gigantic brick building that looked so much like a big Eastern university. Rumor had it that Central students enjoyed several fancy kitchens set up just for home economics class, as well as the latest projectors for showing movies and all sorts of science laboratory equipment. The newspaper said it had the highest ranking given by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. I had read that two of its graduates had become Rhodes scholars.
The building was seven stories high, stretching along two extra-long city blocks. It must have been eight times the size of Horace Mann, my old high school. It was surrounded by manicured lawns and trees, with a pond in front. It had the kind of look I had only seen in movies, the kind that tells you folks have budgeted lots of money to keep things nice.
Grandma reassured me that although Central High was a special place, I deserved to be there as much as anyone. She said I would not have been chosen if school officials didn’t think I could measure up to the course work. But there were lots of my own people giving me the kind of advice that made me think they didn’t have faith in me. They didn’t think my brain or my manners were good enough to be with white people.
My friend Marsha, for one. She had lectured me on the evils of perspiration. She said white people didn’t perspire, so I had to be certain I didn’t let them see me perspire. I was petrified on that first morning I was to go to school, because standing over the kitchen stove, helping Grandma with breakfast, was making me perspire. I was also afraid of ruining the blouse Mother Lois had sewn for me to wear. But Grandma consoled me by saying there was nothing wrong with perspiration. No matter what, I had to be myself, she chided. I shouldn’t ever change myself to try and become like the white people.
The ring of the phone jarred us both. The furrow in Grandma’s brow showed her annoyance; nevertheless, she padded down the hall to answer once more. The hecklers should be tired by now, I thought. After all, they had been up all night calling me.
“God hears you talking this way,” Grandma shouted into the receiver before she slammed it down. Charging back to the kitchen, she was wearing a pretend smile so I wouldn’t know how upset she was. I busied myself basting the eggs, hoping she wouldn’t see I’d overcooked them. There was a long silence before either of us spoke.
I said that maybe we ought to change our phone number. But Grandma said she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Pulling out the special pocket watch given her by Grandpa, who had been a railroad man, she paused for a moment to be certain of the time. It was on time to the tenth of a second. She directed me to pay attention to what I was doing, reminding me that I was supposed to meet the others at eight. The last thing I wanted was to face the 1,950 white students at Central High all by myself. That was three times as many students as attended Horace Mann.
“Don’t look ’em in the eye, Sis,” my younger brother, Conrad, said. Tossing his satchel on the table, he continued. “Remember what happened to Emmitt Till?” His expression changed as his eyes lit up with monstrous delight. I thought about Mr. Till, who had been hanged and tossed in the Mississippi River because he looked white folks in the eye. Grandma must have noticed how upset I was getting because she said that was in Mississippi and Little Rock’s white people were more civilized. She grabbed Conrad and chastised him for not being more loving when I most needed it. When Mother Lois entered the room smiling her good mornings, I noticed she seemed deep in her own thoughts. I couldn’t help thinking if I were as beautiful as she I’d be a real hit at Central High.
Grandma took my hand as she started the blessing, asking the Lord to protect me. I closed my eyes, but not even the breakfast blessing could halt the thoughts buzzing through my mind. As we ate, I hoped no one noticed that I pushed my food about my plate because my stomach didn’t want breakfast. Mother spoke my name softly, and I looked up at her. “You don’t have to integrate this school. Your grandmother and I will love you, no matter what you decide.”
“But I have no choice if we’re gonna stay in Little Rock,” I said. I couldn’t stop hoping that integrating Central High School was the first step to making Little Rock just like Cincinnati, Ohio. Besides, we had been told students of Little Rock’s richest and most important white families attended there. They were also probably very smart. As soon as those students got to know us, I had total faith they would realize how wrong they had been about our people.
“A lot has changed in the two years since you signed up to go to Central. You were younger then,” Mother said with a frown on her face. “Maybe it was a hasty decision—a decision we’ll all regret.”
“I have to go,” I said. “I’ve given my word to the others. They’ll be waiting for me.”
“You have my permission to change your mind at any time. This has got to be your decision. No one can go into that school each day for you. You’re on your own.”
Before Mama Lois could say another word, the phone rang. Conrad raced to answer, but Mother was there first. “Keep your seat, young man.” As she held the phone to her ear, she stood motionless and silent and her face grew ashen and drawn. Then she slowly replaced the receiver in its cradle and said, “It’s time to go!”