Outside, I was happy to see all those wonderful soldiers parading with precision, going through a kind of changing of the guard with helicopters roaring overhead. It was a real military show, and one that made me feel safe. Even though Danny was only a short distance away, I began to feel uneasy, exposed to so many angry white students. Minnijean and Thelma were nearby, and I spoke with them. To our surprise, two or three white students actually exchanged pleasantries with us, but just beyond, a group of whites began whispering hurtful words. After a while, we were left alone while everyone became fascinated with watching the 101st.
Despite the entrancing military activities, time began to drag. At our former school, fire drills had always been brief, three to five minutes, but now twenty-five minutes later we remained outside Central. I was getting antsy, feeling even more vulnerable standing out in the open that way. There was still a rather large, unhappy crowd gathered across from the school. Photographers and news reporters scrambled about, taking pictures and vying for scraps of information about how we were being received in class. Finally a bell rang, signaling our return to class.
I hesitated as the throng of students made its way back up the front staircase. When the bottom of the stairway had cleared, Danny motioned me to move ahead. By then I was anxious to go to the cafeteria. I was looking forward to being with my friends, with people I could talk to and laugh with, but Danny said we had been summoned to the vice-principal’s office.
He walked only a few steps behind me as I moved cautiously through the clogged hallway avoiding close contact with hecklers wherever I could. We moved up to the second floor and into the office, where I was met by Carlotta, Thelma, and Mrs. Huckaby, the girls’ vice-principal. She was hard to read. I felt neither wrath nor warmth from her. She seemed a woman determined to carry out her duties and keep things going as smoothly as possible. She insisted on escorting us to the rest room and the cafeteria, and we thanked her.
The four of us walked to the lower level and into a wider hallway, a brightly lit area of what appeared to be a basement corridor leading to the biggest cafeteria I had ever seen.
Danny trailed behind me, taking up a station across from the entry to the cafeteria. I turned to glance at the sea of white faces that stretched before me. The cafeteria seemed to be half the size of a football field, filled with long tables. There was a roar of noise from the hundreds of chatting, laughing students and the clang of utensils. The line of people waiting to pick up their food appeared to go on forever. Many of the students in that room turned to stare at us. All at once I caught a glimpse of nonwhite faces—my people serving food behind the counter. I didn’t feel the same twinge of painful embarrassment I sometimes felt when I saw my people in service positions in public places. Instead, I was thrilled to see them smiling back at me.
The cafeteria line was treacherous, but I survived with my tray of food intact. Over lunch, Carlotta, Thelma, and I were joined by a couple of friendly white girls. For a brief moment, we laughed and talked about ordinary things as though it were a typical school day. Indeed, a few white students were trying to reach out to us. They explained that many of their friends would stay away because they feared segregationists who warned them against any show of kindness toward us.
After lunch, as I headed for gym class, I had two more reasons to hope integration could work. Amid all the hecklers taunting me, two girls had smiled and waved a welcome. Danny and I parted company at the door that led to the girls’ dressing room. We agreed to meet after I changed into my gym uniform. He would wait near the head of the narrow corridor that led to gym class. I was frightened as I looked down at the bandage on my knee from the last time I had walked those isolated corridors to gym class. I got out of there as fast as I could.
I entered the dressing room and changed my clothing, going about my business briskly, even when someone tried to block my way. The stares and name-calling hurt, but I was growing accustomed to coping with it. With surprising speed, I had changed into my uniform and was on my way out to meet Danny.
He pointed me toward the concrete stairs that led down to the first-level playing field. Several hundred yards beneath us on what had been an enormous playing field, there was now a huge city. Hundreds of olive-drab tents stood in meticulous rows. There were jeeps and larger trucks with tarpaulins. It was an absolute beehive of activity. Several soldiers were posted directly below us in the field where my class would be. The sight of pristine lines of marching soldiers going back and forth in the distance calmed my nerves.
I walked down the steps to where the class would be playing volleyball and joined the others as they divided themselves into teams. But before we could start playing, a girl called out to Danny.
“You like protecting nigger bitches?” She smiled sweetly and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Wouldn’t you rather be following me around instead of her?”
Danny’s facial muscles tightened, but he said nothing as she continued to spew insults at both of us. The gym teacher was quite a distance away, blowing her whistle and refereeing the game. Occasionally she would look back, but I wasn’t at all certain she could hear the heckling. I joined the game and tried to be as cooperative as possible.
When class ended, I played a game with myself. I would earn a world record for getting dressed at the fastest speed known to mankind. When Danny greeted me, he confirmed I had far exceeded his expectations. As he trailed me through an isolated passage to the open hallway, we were confronted by a chorus of chants from sideburners. Copying their hairstyle from James Dean and Elvis, they fancied themselves to be “bad boys.”
“Hut, one two three, march . . . march company . . . march to the beat of the nigger drum,” the choir of boys chanted as we walked past. Suddenly, one of them came up to me and slammed my books out of my hand onto the floor. We were surrounded by thugs, many much bigger than Danny.
“Don’t move,” Danny whispered. “Stand absolutely still.” His words stopped me from running for my life. At that moment it was hard to remain still; my knees were shaking as the group closed in on us. All at once, from nowhere, other soldiers appeared and made their presence known by holding on to their nightsticks and moving toward us slowly. I wondered where they had come from so quickly. Then I looked behind me and there were still more, standing against the walls, erect and silent, as though steeled to go into action at any moment.
Reluctantly, the hooligans dispersed, leaving a trail of insults in their wake. The soldiers withdrew as quickly and quietly as they had appeared, out of sight in an instant.
There was no harsh greeting or heckling as I entered French class. In fact, some of the students wore pleasant expressions. It took a while to realize they had a different kind of unwelcome mat for me. I was excited about French class. Mother Lois spoke fluent French; she often gave Conrad and me lessons over the dinner table. I was anxious to get started because I could see that Central had tape recorders and special headphones, things I hadn’t had in my French classes before.
The students spent the entire hour speaking in French about suntanning. I understood the language, and I didn’t know what to do as one student spoke in French about not wanting to get too dark “for fear of being taken for a . . . Uh, well, you know, a ‘nigger.’” I blinked back tears of disappointment.
A serious headache was overtaking me by the time I headed for study hall with Danny tagging behind. Entering the door was like walking into a zoo with the animals outside their cages. The room was double the size of the largest classroom in my old school. I’d never seen anything like it or imagined in my wildest dreams that an important school like Central could allow such outrageous behavior. Stomping, walking, shouting, sailing paper airplanes through the air, students were milling about as though they were having a wild party. The teacher sat meekly behind his desk, a spectator stripped of the desire or power to make them behave.
I took five steps into the room, and everybody fell silent, abandoning their activities to glare at me.
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“Take that seat over there,” the study hall teacher said.
“But I need—” I wanted to ask him for a seat near the door where I could see Danny, but he cut me off.
“Did you hear me? I said take the seat over there or see the principal.”
The teacher returned to reading his newspaper while the students threw spitballs. They directed only a few at me; mostly they were involved in their own little games. At one point, they started passing notes back and forth. When one was passed to me, I opened it. “Nigger go home,” it read. I looked at it without emotion, folded it neatly, and put it aside.
“The helicopters are coming to pick up the nigger,” someone shouted. Thank God, I thought. I had lived through the wildest hour where nobody did anything major to me, but their threats, near misses, and flying paper airplanes and pencils had shattered my nerves. “Helicopters. Home,” I whispered. It seemed like a lifetime since I had been home and comfortable and safe. Just then Danny opened the door and beckoned to me. “Let’s move out for home!” he said.
The whirring sound of the helicopter overhead drowned out some of the shouted insults as I made my way out of the study hall. Danny and I headed to the principal’s office, where I was to connect with the other students and soldiers for the trip home. I had made it through my first day at Central High.
“Readin’, writin’, and riotin’.” The comedic dialogue of our group had already begun before we left the building. What I needed most was the kind of laughter that would take my headache away. There we were, the nine of us, smiling, chatting, and behaving as though we were normal teenagers ending a normal school day. At the same time, uniformed and armed soldiers with bayonets held high were gathering around us for the trip out of the building. Nestled within the same protective cocoon that had enveloped us on our way into school, we made our exit through the front door. I looked back to see a group of white students trailing behind us, their hostile feelings painted on their faces.
The engine of the helicopter roared louder as we descended the stairs. Protected by the mighty power of the Screaming Eagles, we walked to the army staff car waiting at the curb. Once again, a group of soldiers was galloping back and forth. Even the chants of “Two, four, six, eight, we ain’t gonna integrate!” could not dispel my joy. I was going home. As I stepped into the car, a wave of peace washed over me.
“Relax, we’re on the move,” Sarge, our driver, said as we snuggled down into our seats. The convoy was the same as it had been that morning; in front, the open jeep filled with soldiers, a machine gun mounted on its hood, with a similar vehicle behind us. As we pulled away from Central High, I looked back to see students gathered on the school lawn, staring at us as though they were watching a parade they hadn’t known was coming their way. For just one tiny instant, I even felt a twinge of sympathy for them.
“You’all have a good day, did you?” Sarge said, making polite conversation. We all gave our different versions of the same answer:
“Good isn’t exactly the word to describe my day.”
“All right.”
“Depends on what you mean by good.”
“My mama never told me there’d be days like this one.”
That was the beginning of a funny round-robin to see who could describe their experience in the most colorful language. The ride home brought the joyful relief I had awaited all day. At times, our stories halted all laughter as we noticed someone’s eyes filled with tears. There were tales of flying books and pencils and words that pierce the soul. But there were also descriptions of polite students who volunteered to sit beside us or offered to lend back homework assignments or flashed a warm smile just when we needed it most.
Our respite was over all too soon. As we approached Mrs. Bates’s home, I saw news reporters. My headache started up again. The cameras began to flash even before Sarge could get the car parked. We said our “thank-you’s” to him and turned to face the bombardment of questions as we made our way to Mrs. Bates’s front door.
“What was it like inside the school? Were you frightened? How were you treated? Did anybody hit you? Did they call you names? What classes are you taking?” Over and over again the same questions. Then there was one that stuck in my mind and made me tighten my jaw. “Are you going back tomorrow?”
I wasn’t ready to think of another tomorrow at Central High. I sat quietly and pondered the question as I glanced out the front window at the few soldiers standing at attention. But they were there for only a brief moment before they climbed into the jeeps and the station wagon and rolled away. And then my attention was quickly brought inside by the rude question being asked.
“Would you like to be white?” I scowled at the reporter, and he must have understood my irritation. “Uh, I mean, does all this trouble make you’all wish you were white instead of Negro?” he amended his question.
“Do you wish you were Negro?” I heard the angry words roll out of my mouth. “I’m proud of who I am. My color is inconvenient right now, but it won’t always be like this.” I’d said what I felt, despite the fear that it would be considered talking back to an adult.
“Can you write as well as you can speak?” a slender dark-haired man asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“Why don’t you try it? I’m Stan Opotowiski of the New York Post, and this is Ted Posten. Here’s my card. I would like you to write what you’re thinking, and I’ll see to it that it’s printed.” I looked at them. Posten was the same race as me.
“Yeah, sure, I can try.” I took the card from him. I had always written. It was the first thing I remembered about life, writing my thoughts down in letters to God on the pages of the orange-covered tablet with the black ink drawing of an Indian head on the cover. Besides, I was very flattered that he would ask me. I told myself I owed him a favor. If reporters hadn’t been covering our story, we might have been hanged. News of our demise would be a three-line notation buried on the back page of a white newspaper were it not for the Northern reporters’ nosy persistence in getting the facts and dogging the trail of segregationists.
“WE’RE off to the Dunbar Community Center for another news conference.” I couldn’t believe my ears, but off we went—once more answering questions in a more formal setting. It was quite a while after dark before we called Thelma’s father to pick us up. It felt as if the news conference had gone on forever. Reporters from all the major periodicals I’d read in the library were there asking questions.
As we rode home I looked forward to shedding my day like soiled clothing. But the first thing I saw as I rounded the corner to my house was reporters sitting in the green lawn chairs on my front porch holding cameras and notebooks, and a few neighbors gathered in front of my house talking to them. I can’t face them, I thought to myself. But I did—I got through it. I smiled, I said the right things, I pretended to be interested in the questions.
By 9 P.M., I was so tired that I only wanted my pillow and dreams—sweet, happy dreams with no white people and no Central High. The next thing I heard was the song on my radio as the alarm went off, waking me out of a cold, sweaty dream. “Peggy . . . Peggy Sue-ue-ue . . .” Buddy Holly was singing. It took me a minute to realize where I was and what I had to do. How I hated that song, hated, hated it! They played it over and over every morning at that time. I picked up my diary and started to write:
It’s Thursday, September 26, 1957. Now I have a bodyguard. I know very well that the President didn’t send those soldiers just to protect me but to show support for an idea—the idea that a governor can’t ignore federal laws. Still, I feel specially cared about because the guard is there. If he wasn’t there, I’d hear more of the voices of those people who say I’m a nigger . . . that I’m not valuable, that I have no right to be alive.
Thank you, Danny.
14
OVERHEAD, the helicopter was engaged in its roaring flutter. I relaxed a bit because I was, by the second day, familiar with the military routine of ou
r ride to Central. I allowed myself to become hypnotized by the sight of soldiers executing their duties. Disciplined, crisp, precise, confident, and powerful—those were the words that came to mind. Sarge was even more talkative, explaining that the 101st had earned its reputation for bravery during World War II by stopping the German attack at the Battle of the Bulge.
I asked Sarge if our escorts in the jeeps felt as odd as we did about being propped up there with those big guns mounted in front of them just to take us to school.
“Nope,” he said. “We do what we’re told.”
I couldn’t help thinking about the Gazette morning headlines, which read: “TROOPS ROUT MOB; IKE TO SEE GOVERNORS, TALK OF REMOVING ARMY.” Already Southern governors were joining forces to press for the withdrawal of the 101st soldiers from Central High. They were to meet the following week.
“Whatcha wanna bet we’ll be making this trip alone, come next week,” Ernie said with his usual grin. Even though he was laughing and teasing, I knew his words held a very painful truth. But I couldn’t even think of the troops leaving.
“School days, school days, dear old Golden Rule days.” To block any thoughts of the troops leaving, I began to sing. The others were chiming in as we pulled up to the curb to join the soldiers for our walk to class. I was rather dismayed to see that a complement of only six soldiers surrounded us as we ascended the stairs to the front door. The helicopter hovered, while perhaps two hundred soldiers stood at attention in clusters nearby.
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