I walked to the edge of the platform and looked down. It still made me dizzy. Everything was the same and yet not the same. I looked up. A plane flew overhead and my eyes cleared. I imagined Liz and Curtis and Betty Jean at the pool, swimming with Nora and Little Jimmy and Mother and me. Somewhere. Over the rainbow.
And so I jumped.
I wish I could say it was a perfect swan dive. Actually, it was more like a crazed belly-flop, and all the air was sucked out of me as I hit the water at a funny angle. I floundered under the water, my skin stinging all over, sure I was drowning. Then I opened my eyes.
The water was blue and full of chlorine, and my eyes stung, but I factored the equation and realized I was upside down and all I had to do was right myself and swim up. Sounds easier than it was, but I clawed my way to the surface. And when I took that first deep breath and saw the clear summer sky, and heard my sister and Little Jimmy and Nora and even Sally and JT cheering for me, I swear I heard the lions roar.
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
In 1957, nine African American students integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Little Rock Nine, as they came to be called, endured daily abuse and harassment so extreme that the 101st Airborne Division was called in to keep the peace. The story made headlines across the nation.
So when I sat down to write another book of historical fiction, setting it in 1957 Little Rock seemed like an obvious choice. My mother was born there, and I thought the events at Central would be an exciting backdrop for my protagonist. However, when I flew to Arkansas in 2008 to do interviews for The Lions of Little Rock, I found that while people there certainly remembered 1957 and the Little Rock Nine, what they really wanted to talk about was 1958, when all the public high schools in Little Rock, white and black, were closed in order to prevent integration. Their stories of that “lost year” were so compelling that after my visit, I decided moving my story to 1958 made sense for a number of reasons.
The first reason was that the events of 1957 are already quite well known. When I was in elementary school, my own education about the civil rights era was sketchy at best, but even I learned about the Little Rock Nine. Also, there are already a number of excellent books written about the 1957–58 school year, and I realized there was no way I could ever write anything as interesting as the Little Rock Nine’s own firsthand accounts of what had gone on inside Central High. On the other hand, I had never heard of schools being closed to prevent integration, even though I later learned it had happened in my very own state of Virginia as well. This seemed like a story that needed to be told.
In addition, some of the people I interviewed (who lived in Little Rock but did not attend Central in 1957) said they really didn’t discuss what was going on at the high school with their parents or anyone else, unless they saw pictures or it was otherwise unavoidable. Others admitted that, like many young adults today, they were rather self-centered and were more interested in what was going on in their own schools and with their friends. This changed in 1958. The conflict could not be so easily brushed aside when they saw their older brothers and sisters sitting at home or sent away to attend school. Perhaps it wasn’t as dramatic as soldiers at a high school, but on an everyday basis, more people were affected.
Finally, 1957–58 was a terrible year. That the Little Rock Nine endured, and no one was killed, was probably the high point. Many citizens of Little Rock were embarrassed that the world saw only the hate and bigotry in their town. In contrast, by 1958–59, some people in Little Rock had started to speak out. The more I learned about the Women’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools (WEC) and the Stop This Outrageous Purge (STOP) campaign, the more interested I became in this year when the city itself seemed to find a voice.
And finding a voice was something I was interested in. My mother and her family moved away from Little Rock in 1954, but if they had remained, my aunt would have been a member of the sophomore class at Central High School in 1957. This is what she had to say about it: “All my life I have wondered how I would have behaved if I had been a student at Central. I know without a doubt I would not have called names or been rude. But my real question to myself is, would I have been kind? I’m afraid I would have done nothing.” Perhaps one can think of 1957–58 as the year many did nothing, when the voices of the segregationists drowned out the thoughts of everyone else. By 1959, however, many of those people with “kind thoughts” had finally started to speak up.
I don’t want to give the impression that the struggle for integration in Little Rock was over in 1959—it wasn’t. But it seems like the beginning of the end, in a way that 1958 clearly does not. My hope is that The Lions of Little Rock will allow a more complete view of what happened in Little Rock during those years.
Although this book is fiction, I have tried to be as historically accurate as possible, especially in my portrayal of the WEC and the STOP campaign. The books and videos listed below were invaluable in learning about the time, and are a great starting point for anyone wanting to learn more. I was fortunate enough to speak personally with Cynthia East, the daughter of Dr. Agar (one of the organizers of the STOP campaign), and I got to hear firsthand her memories of working on the election, receiving threatening phone calls, and being sent away from town.
Marlee and Liz are fictional characters. However, my uncle, who attended West Side Junior High, said that when he was a student there, he knew a boy who was “there one day and gone the next.” The rumor was that the boy had been black, passing as white. While I have no evidence that this happened in 1958, it seemed like perhaps it could have happened. With a bit of poetic license, it gave me the idea of how Marlee and Liz might have met and become friends.
The bombing, as described in the book, is fictional, though it was based on two separate real events. On September 7, 1959, the day before Labor Day, three bombs went off in Little Rock—one at the school board administrative building, one at the business offices of Mayor Werner Koop, and one in the station wagon of Fire Chief Gann Nalley (who had turned fire hoses on segregationist protesters just a few weeks before). More dynamite was found in the woods on the edge of town. Five white men, all linked to the Ku Klux Klan, were arrested and eventually convicted. The other event was the bombing of the house of Carlotta Walls (one of the Little Rock Nine) on February 9, 1960. As described in her book (see below), the investigation into this bombing was handled terribly, and included the questioning of her own father and the arrest of two family friends.
Finally, I hope this book expresses my admiration and respect for public schools. When I was in elementary school in the early 1980s, my mainly white neighborhood was paired with a mainly black neighborhood to create two integrated elementary schools, one for grades K–3 and the other for grades 4–6. When I asked my parents why I had to ride the bus to school instead of just going to the school nearest my house, they told me it was a great opportunity for me to go to school with people who were different from me, by race, social class, religion, et cetera. They said it was only fair that the busing be shared by both neighborhoods. Their enthusiasm for the pairing of our schools made a huge impression on me. Sometimes I think people today forget that public schools are not just about reading and writing, math and test scores, but also about bringing different types of people together. I’ll never forget my parents’ belief that school integration was important and beneficial to all of us, no matter what our color.
Kristin Levine
June 1, 2011
Alexandria, Virginia
Suggested Books for Learning More:
Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock’s Central High by Melba Pattillo Beals
A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School by Carlotta Walls LaNier
The Power of One: Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine by Judith
Bloom Fradin and Dennis Brindell Fradin
Finding the Lost Year: What Happened When Little Rock Closed Its Public Schools by Sondra Gordy
Breaking the Silence: Little Rock’s Women’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools, 1958–1963 by Sara Alderman Murphy
The Embattled Ladies of Little Rock, 1958–1963: The Struggle to Save Public Education at Central High by Vivion Lenon Brewer
Suggested Films:
The Lost Year: The Untold Story of the Year Following the Crisis at Central High School by Sandra Hubbard
The Giants Wore White Gloves: The Women’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools by Sandra Hubbard
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are so many people I want to thank for helping me make The Lions of Little Rock a reality. First of all is my amazing editor, Stacey Barney. With her infinite patience and insightful questions, she always helped me see how my book could be more than what it was. Thank you also to my agent, Kathy Green, for all her support and encouragement, and for making the business side of writing so easy.
My deepest appreciation goes out to everyone who talked with me about the late 1950s in Little Rock, both in person (LaVerne Bell-Tolliver, Katherine Downie, Cynthia East, Helen Harrison, Harry Otis Sims Jr., Judy Reed, and Marlene Walker) and via e-mail (Sondra Gordy, Sandy Hubbard, Martha Cornish, Irving Spitzberg, Chris Barrier, Susan Baker, Susan Altrui and Bobbie Forbush).
In addition, I want to express my gratitude to all the people who read different versions of this story, including Matt McNevin, Jessie Auten, Debbie Gaydos, Cynthia East, Pam Ehrenberg, Gwen Glazer, Kirsten Green, Brooke Kenny, Elizabeth McBride, Meredith Tseu and Farrar Williams.
With two small children, I couldn’t have gotten this book done without babysitting help: thanks to Roseann Mauroni, Jessie Auten and Debbie Gaydos for volunteering to hang out with my kids. I’m also most grateful to the librarians at John Marshall Library for always making me feel like a star when I walked in, and Candy and Wil Briffa and their fantastic staff at Grounded Coffee for making their coffee shop such a pleasant place to work.
An extra special thank-you to my family—to my mother, Marlene Walker, for countless hours of babysitting; to my father, Tom Walker, and my sister, Erika Knott, who jumped in for extra babysitting whenever I had a deadline; and to my husband, Adam Levine, for keeping the household running when I was busy writing. Nothing says I love you like a clean house and dinner on the table. In addition, I’m most grateful to my mom and husband for being my emergency readers, who were always willing to read pages and give me comments, even if it was eleven o’clock at night.
And finally, thank you to my girls for their enormous patience when Mommy had to go work on her book yet again.
By the Author of
The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had
The Lions of Little Rock Page 24