Warriors Don't Cry
Page 23
When on a rare occasion someone ventured to explain to us what was going on, students nearby would draw them aside and chastise them. I felt like a child peeking in the window of the candy store. I hungered for more details of the activities I was excluded from. I put together snippets of conversation as one does a puzzle, anxious to see the final picture. I would forever have an empty spot in my heart when I thought about Christmas of my junior year.
We nine had been very active in our former school—choral groups, honor society activities, Scouts, sports, and especially Christmas pageants. I felt the loss of that participation deeply, and I could tell the others did as well. And now we weren’t even invited to holiday parties with our old school friends. Some of them feared for their safety when we were around—others didn’t agree with what we were doing and refused to have anything to do with us. Still others didn’t mean us any harm; it was a case of “out of sight, out of mind.”
I consoled myself by believing it was probably for the best that I was so preoccupied with staying alive at Central. That meant I didn’t have as much time to think about how lonely I was.
When I heard Minnijean talking about joining in, I wished her well, but underneath it all I knew she had gotten her hopes up too high. She was being targeted because of her persistence. And thanks to my Thanksgiving comment, so was I.
“Do all niggers eat integrated turkeys?” one boy shouted, putting his foot out to trip me in the hallway on the way to my first class.
“Ooooops,” I said as I stepped on his foot, hard. “Oh, excuse me.” I grinned. His face reddened. The subject of the turkey was brought up many more times by the end of the day and not in a friendly fashion. The only thing that kept me going was counting the days until Christmas vacation.
I could see that surviving was wearing all of us down. Thelma, who had always managed her heart defect, was forced to rest much more often, squatting down close to the floor, her head bowed to catch her breath. Ernie wasn’t smiling quite as much. He was getting a wrinkle line in his forehead. I teased him about being our senior member and showing his age.
Carlotta had slowed down. All along, the 101st had called her “the roadrunner” or “speedy,” and her agility had sometimes protected her from would-be attackers. Now she was a bit jumpy and no longer spoke of wanting to join the athletic events at Central.
Minnijean was visibly agitated and jittery, heartbroken that she would not be included in any performances and feeling more and more trapped by the edict that no matter what was said or done to us, we could not retaliate.
Terry seemed jaded and speculated about whether or not we would last the year. Gloria and Elizabeth were quiet and pensive like Jeff. Each one of us talked of how much we looked forward to the upcoming two weeks of Christmas vacation when we could stay home and recharge our batteries. And in our weakest moments when we stood with physical wounds or bruises to our spirits, there was even talk that the Christmas break might be an opportunity to let go of our dream and choose another school.
As I entered Central a few days before my December 7 birthday, I suspected that the glaring headlines in the Arkansas Democrat the previous evening would be flaunted in our faces. The report said the troops that guarded us had cost taxpayers $3.4 million. Needless to say, we had that figure pushed in our faces over and over before the day was done.
But the Gazette headlines told the story that gave real cause for alarm that day:
JUDGE RESETS TRIAL ON NAACP LEADER
The vice-president of the North Little Rock chapter of the NAACP was being charged with not making records available.
MRS. BATES FINED $100 BY ROBINSON
The state president of the NAACP was fined $100 yesterday in Little Rock Municipal Court for failure to supply information on the NAACP requested by the city under a new ordinance.
BENNETT NOTICES SERVED ON NAACP
Three more officers of the NAACP have been served notices to supply information to the city under the Bennett Ordinance.
City officials continued to harass the NAACP leaders just as the students were harassing us at school. My days inside Central were now graded by the severity of the pain I endured. Two huge boys with flattops and sideburns had begun a full-time mission of making my days miserable. Each morning they stood in front of my homeroom door to greet me first thing. “Good morning, nigger—aren’t you’all gonna talk some of that coon jab you speak?”
I mustered the coldest glare I could manage, determined not to show how much they really frightened me. They followed me from class to class, walking up close, stomping my heels, and littering my trail with flying objects, punches, and degrading catcalls. By the fifth day, I was getting rattled. But I knew I had to endure with grace, because nothing could make them go away except a fair-minded teacher who witnessed their antics and took action on my behalf. I had little hope of that happening.
By the tenth day, their nonstop torture made me feel as if I were losing my mind. I had to keep telling myself what Grandma said: I couldn’t ever lose my mind because God is my mind. Still, I imagined I had one of those machine guns television gangsters use. I would fire round after round over their heads to frighten the living daylights out of them. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. I would have to do more prayer for them and for me. I knew guns were forbidden even in my thoughts.
At the same time I dreaded my English teacher’s choice for a book report assignment—The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. She had assigned one of the most radical segregationists to present his report in front of the class. In an annoyingly loud voice he repeated the words “Nigger Jim” at least seventeen times. After each time, he paused to eyeball me with a devilish grin and wait for the reaction of other snickering students. At the end of his report, he curtsied to applause.
I was overcome with the thought of my hands around his throat, squeezing tight. To stave off the anger bubbling inside me, I wrote the Twenty-Third Psalm as fast as I could. Just as I was asking God to forgive me for so despising any of his children, one of the boys passed my seat and kicked my ankle. I had to bite my lip to keep from crying aloud at the pain. My ankle was swelling fast. I waited until everyone left the classroom before I tried to walk. Limping as best I could, I struggled to get up the stairs to my next class. I couldn’t be late for fear of getting a tardy slip.
We were well aware that school officials were waiting for any excuse to kick us out. That point was hammered home to us during meetings with the NAACP. Repeatedly we were told, “Don’t give anyone the slightest opportunity to accuse you of being out of line. Don’t be late, don’t talk back, watch your decorum, watch your grades. Complain only when something is injurious to your health, or life-threatening.”
All the while, a deep yearning for human contact was growing inside me. I had nobody to talk to from 8:20 each morning when I said good-bye to my friends until the bell rang for lunch. I longed for all my old school friends, for the laughter and conversations we had had about the latest fashions, songs on the hit parade, or newspaper headlines. I imagined how it would feel to say hello to the white students and to have them answer with kind words. I longed to say, “Hello, how are you? I like your blouse. What’s going on with you?” I longed for someone to acknowledge that I was alive by saying something pleasant to me, and allowing me to say something back.
It was frustrating to have people so close, have them chatting to each other while saying absolutely nothing to me, and never even looking me in the eye. Occasionally students stood or sat close enough to touch, talking over and around me as though I didn’t exist. It was a very painful insult I didn’t know how to combat. They were treating me as if I were invisible. Sometimes when a classmate said something funny, I would smile and even laugh out loud, forgetful for just one instant of my predicament.
“We weren’t talking to you, nigger,” they would say. Jolted back to reality by their cruelty, I would catch myself, neutralize my expression to hide my feelings, and stare straight ahead.
“So you say you feel neglected because the white folks are ignoring you.”
“Yes, ma’am, I really do.” I took a seat at the kitchen table.
“Let me heat up that milk for you; it’s a mite chilly in here.” Grandma smiled and stroked my hand as she took the cup and walked over to the stove. She remained silent as though she were rearranging her words just for me while she turned to put jelly-bean eyes onto the faces of the freshly baked gingerbread men in the pan resting on top of the counter. And then she turned to look me in the eye as she said, “Did you count on those Central people for your spiritual food before you went there?”
“Well, . . . uh . . . no, ma’am, but . . .”
“Have you been waiting on them to treat you good and tell you you’re all right so you’ll know you’re all right?”
“Uh, well, uh . . .” She had me. When she explained it, it didn’t sound the same as when I felt it.
“Does God know your value?”
“Yes, ma’am, He does. But I’m lonely for humans.”
“You can never in this lifetime count on another human being to keep you from being lonely. Nobody can provide your spiritual food . . . not your mama, not your grandma, not your brother, not your 101st guards, not your boyfriend, and certainly not your husband.”
“It’s so hard sometimes. I don’t know if I can make it.”
“Patience is a virtue, my child.”
I felt my teeth grind and my jaw tighten as anger welled up inside me. Grandma read my thoughts as she always had. “Anger brings defeat,” she told me. “If you fight back, you have a battle, and you will be the loser.”
Grandma walked over to take the second pan of gingerbread men from the oven. I thought about how anxious I had been over the past few days, anxious to get the whole thing over with, anxious for revenge against the two boys who had been harassing me. I had even imagined threatening them with a gun. Grandma’s answer had not quelled my anger. “Fighting back is never the solution,” she continued.
“But I’m so angry I’m afraid it’s gonna swell up and explode.”
“Not likely.” She turned to give me her full attention. “I want you to read about Gandhi,” she said, walking closer to me and touching my cheek with her hand. “You read slow and take it all in. You think about all he accomplished without violence or anger.”
“Gandhi, yes, ma’am.” I knew about Gandhi, about his courage even in the face of people beating up on him and calling him ugly names. I didn’t think I was that strong and pure.
“Those segregationists are counting on you to fail. Go ahead, hit back, make them happy.”
“Your grandmother is right,” Mother Lois said as she entered the kitchen and threw her jacket over the chair. “You hit back every day you get through. You kick them every week you get through. And if you make it through the year, you’ve hit them with the biggest blow of all.”
20
“SWEET sixteen?” How could I be turning sweet sixteen in just a few days and be a student at Central High, I thought as I entered the side door of the school. Looking around, I wanted to take care that no one would bang me on my head or trip me up. I had relished so many dreams of how sweet my sixteenth year would be, and now it had arrived, but I was here in this place.
As I walked deeper into the dim passageway, I thought about how I had always hoped that my sixteenth birthday would be second only to my wedding day as the most perfect moment of my life. I had planned every detail of the celebration, beginning at school with my friends, a party at home with a new dress, red and white balloons all over the house, and “Sixteen Candles” playing on the hi-fi. All my friends would arrive, and I would have my first real date and my first kiss.
Sixteen had always seemed the magic age that signaled the beginning of freedom, when Mama and Grandma might let loose their hold and let me go out with my friends on pre-dates. But with the integration, I was nowhere near being free. And in the midst of everything else, I’d almost forgotten my own birthday. I hadn’t even begun preparations.
Sixteen was also going to be my debut year—I had planned to launch my campaign to become a popular girl about school. I would run for student council president maybe. I would perform on stage—sing the songs of Dinah Washington in school talent shows. Maybe they’d like my singing so much that I’d get a recording contract and be able to help Mama and Grandma so they wouldn’t have to work so hard. None of that was going to happen now—nobody would let me even say “good morning” at Central, let alone sing on stage.
“Hey, nigger, . . . you here again?” A boy’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. A strong hand grabbed my wrist and doubled my arm up behind my back, like a policeman arresting a criminal. Frantically I looked for a teacher or guard. There was none.
“Hey, we got us a nigger to play with.” He was shouting to his friends. Soon I’d have several of them on me. I struggled against him, but it was no use. Then I remembered I’d always been told, “If a fellow’s got so little manhood he’d hit a woman, it’s up to that woman to relieve him of what few morsels of his masculinity remain.” I bent my knee and jammed my foot backward, up his crotch.
“Damn you, bitch,” he shouted. “You’ll be a dead nigger before this day is over.”
Grabbing my purse, I raced down the hall, leaving my textbooks behind. I felt the power of having defended myself. I walked up the stairs to homeroom, only to be greeted by the same two boys who had been taunting me every day. I squared my shoulders and glared at them as I whispered, “I will be here tomorrow and the next day and the next.”
THE NINE WHO DARED
—New York Post, Thursday, December 5, 1957
NEWSPAPERS across the country started carrying a series of articles and profiles on the nine of us. Central High segregationists used the details to taunt us. The articles gave specific information on what our homes were like, our backgrounds, our hobbies, our aspirations—all there was to know about us. I began to regret that exposure. Students didn’t let up for one minute chirping on about my folks, my mother’s teaching, and things I considered personal and sacred.
When the nine of us got together to compare notes, we discovered we were all facing an increasing barrage of injurious activities. What was noticeably different was the frequency and the organized pattern of harassment. Teams of students appeared to be assigned specific kinds of torture. One team concentrated on slamming us into lockers, while another focused on tripping us up or shoving us down staircases; still another concentrated on attacks with weapons. Another group must have been told to practice insidious harassment inside the classrooms. Still others worked at entrapment, luring the boys in dark corners or the girls into tight spots in isolated passageways. Some continued to use the showers as a means of abuse.
At the same time I was feeling alarmed about rumors of segregationist training programs to sharpen the skills of hooligans inside school. I was also increasingly worried about Minnijean. She was waging yet another battle with school officials to get permission to appear with the choral group in the Christmas program. No matter how much Thelma and I tried to convince her to let go of the idea, she wouldn’t give up the notion that if she could perform, somehow the white students would see she was talented and therefore accept her.
Perhaps because of that determination, Minnijean was receiving more than her share of daily name-calling, kicking, and hitting, but she was suffering in yet another way. She somehow had more faith than we did in school officials. She continued to count on them to respond with compassion to her reports of being mistreated. It was as though she couldn’t believe what s
he was seeing, so she had to test them to be certain they were really as inhuman as they seemed. The pressure she felt was sapping all her energy.
She had also allowed herself to be sucked into the game I called “herky, jerky, or now I speak to you, now I don’t.” Occasionally, really vicious students would make overtures to us; they would smile or say “hello” for a few days in a row, pretending they had had a change of heart and were now our dearest friends. Just as we were growing to trust them, anxious for the connection, they would ignore us or make us the object of ridicule amid a group of their friends. Sometimes their overtures were intended to make us trust them so they could lead us into traps where we’d be physically abused. But most often it was for the sheer pleasure of watching the pain we endured when they harshly rejected us.
When one girl pretended to befriend Minnijean, only to betray her a short time later, Minnijean was crushed. She cried in front of school officials. That’s when I knew she must be on the edge, because it wasn’t like her to show her vulnerability in front of white people. With each passing day I watched as she grew more fragile.