“The very basis of our individual rights and freedoms rests upon the certainty that the president and the executive branch of government will support and ensure the carrying out of the decisions of the federal courts, even, when necessary, with all the means at the president’s command … Unless the president did so, anarchy would result.”
In that moment, I wasn’t thinking so much about history or the Constitution or the everlasting impact of the president’s words. I rejoiced for the simplest of reasons: Finally, I would be able to return to school—and with the protection of the U.S. military, no less.
Later that night, Uncle J.W., a World War II veteran, called to tell me about the 101st Airborne. They were America’s military elite, also known as “the Screaming Eagles,” he explained excitedly. They were renowned for their heroism during the Normandy invasion and the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. Now, they were coming to Little Rock. Now, I surely would be in good hands, he said.
There have been few moments in my life prouder than this one. I believed so strongly, with all the naïveté of my youth, that the system of governance I had learned about in school would prevail and that the U.S. Supreme Court order somehow would be upheld. And through it all, I never even considered backing away from my decision to attend Central. I’d been taught all my life not to be a quitter, so quitting just wasn’t in my nature. If my parents ever considered pulling me out of Central during those scary first days, they never told me. I’m sure they had tough questions for Mrs. Bates behind closed doors. I’m sure all of the parents did. To this day, I don’t know exactly what went on in those private meetings between her and them. I just know that in my presence, my parents never wavered in their belief that I had a right to attend Central. And if it took the power and might of the U.S. military to make it happen, well then, so be it.
For the first night in a long time, I slept peacefully.
I woke up extra early on September 25. A mix of nervous anticipation and excitement jolted me out of bed before sunrise, even though I wasn’t sure I would be going to school. When I went to bed the night before, the word was we were going to wait another day before returning to school, despite the presence of the troops. Mrs. Bates had called my parents around ten p.m. the night before and told Mother that she had not yet heard from Superintendent Blossom with a plan. Sometime before daybreak, though, Mrs. Bates showed up at our door with different instructions. We were to meet at her house by eight a.m., she told my parents. Superintendent Blossom had called her after midnight to say that the military troopers would meet the nine of us at her house later that morning and escort us to school. To make sure we all got the message, Mrs. Bates drove to each of our homes. Blossom had rounded up two black men who worked as principals to accompany her. Their first stop at one a.m. was the home of Gloria Ray. Gloria’s father, on edge from all the threats and mob violence that week, met the unexpected guests at the door with a shotgun. And he was in no mood to hear about his baby going back to Central.
“I don’t care if the president of the United States gave you those instructions,” he barked. “I won’t let Gloria go. She’s faced two mobs and that’s enough.”
Everybody was on edge, Mrs. Bates later wrote, but the remaining parents, including mine, responded a bit calmer. Of course, I wasn’t aware of any of this when I first popped out of bed and went to Mother for an update. Yes, I was going to school, she said, revealing—as usual—just what I needed to know, nothing more. I got dressed quickly and grabbed a bite to eat. I couldn’t wait to see what this elite military unit looked like. Mother and I pulled up outside the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bates as other students and their parents were getting out of their cars, too. The place was already swarming with reporters, photographers, neighbors, and NAACP officials. I joined the other students, making small talk until everyone, including Gloria, had arrived. The parents milled about, chatting with one another, while Mr. and Mrs. Bates worked the crowd, reassuring everybody. This was an important day, the couple told us. We would walk into that school under the protection of our U.S. government. The atmosphere was noticeably lighter. One of the ministers in the room led us all in prayer. Heads were bowed, and tears rolled down many cheeks as the minister asked God to protect and guide us on this historic day. But I was slightly distracted. Of all things, I couldn’t stop thinking about whether I would remember the way to the three classes I had attended two days earlier.
The light chatter returned, but it was soon drowned out by the rumble of military vehicles making their way down the quiet residential street. The army was here, someone announced. A wave of excitement rushed through the room. I dashed to the picture window in the living room as the other students also scattered to get a closer look. A convoy of jeeps rolled past the house and idled in the street. Soldiers dressed in helmets and combat gear hopped out and blocked 28th Street on each end. They stood at attention with their rifles. As a large olive-colored station wagon pulled up in front of the house, Mrs. Bates called us away from the windows. It was time, she said. We gathered our books and made our way to the door. I felt more ready than I’d ever been for this moment. As we stepped outside, cameras flashed around us from high and low. Reporters shouted questions and jotted into small notebooks. Neighbors stood in their yards and along the streets to bear witness. One by one, the nine of us climbed into the station wagon. A topless jeep filled with soldiers led the way. Another followed us. This time, we drove at a normal slow pace. Black mothers and fathers, who had been held captive inside their homes for days by the rampaging white mob, spilled onto front porches, yards, and the sides of streets. As our convoy moved up 16th Street in the vicinity of the school, I saw small clusters of white parents and children walking away from the school. I learned later that Major General Edwin Walker, commander of the operation, had met with the white students in the auditorium just before we arrived to explain his mission:
“You have nothing to fear from my soldiers, and no one will interfere with your coming, going, or your peaceful pursuit of your studies …,” he told them. “[My soldiers] are here because they have been ordered to be here. They are seasoned, well-trained soldiers, many of them combat veterans. Being soldiers, they are as determined as I to carry out their orders.”
A group of the students walked out. Perhaps they were the stragglers we saw exiting the school grounds as we pulled onto the campus. Their faces looked angry and hateful, but this time, there were no loud, hateful words. This time, there was no speeding or trying to hide from the mob. The would-be members of the mob had been dispersed, some forcefully, before we arrived. The U.S. military had tucked all nine of us securely under its wing, and in just a few minutes, we would fly right into the heart of Central, almost daring those hateful men and women to try to put their hands on us now.
For a few precious moments, life seemed to roll in slow motion as our caravan turned left onto Park Street from 16th. Hundreds of paratroopers lined the streets around the school. They stood shoulder to shoulder, their M-1 rifles and bayonets ready. They had been in position since five a.m., the news reports said, cordoning off the school for three blocks on either side. A few students milled around outside, watching the scene quietly, curiously. The streets were graveyard quiet, except for the occasional crackle of the soldiers’ walkie-talkies. The soldiers snapped to attention when our station wagon pulled up. This time, we rolled past the side door we had entered on that terrifying first day. Our caravan pulled to a stop right in front of the school. This time, we were going through the front door. Until that moment, it hadn’t fully registered that the game of ducking and hiding was over. I could hold my head up. I—we—had a right to walk through those front doors, like anyone else. And the president of the United States had sent our U.S. military to ensure that right.
The car doors swung open. It was 9:22 a.m. My heart thumped faster than ever before. As I stepped out of the station wagon, the morning sky seemed brighter. The nine of us got into line, mostly by twos. A helicopter hovere
d above. Several soldiers trotted across the yard to catch up with us. Then twenty-two of them positioned themselves completely around us. I felt safe, protected and proud. In tandem, we began to move slowly, deliberately—off the curb, up the walkway, past the fountain, up the left set of steps, and then up the next set. Finally, I stood at that grand entrance with its heavy wooden doors, surrounded by so much brick and stone.
I took a deep breath. The granite eyes of those four Greek gods and goddesses above my head seemed to peer down at me: Ambition. Personality. Opportunity. Preparation. Walk with me now, I implored.
And with a new sense of calm, I stepped across the threshold.
CHAPTER 6
The Blessing of Walls
To my surprise, getting inside Central was just the beginning of a brand-new struggle: finding a way to survive. So much of my energy had been focused on gaining access to the school that it hadn’t really occurred to me what daily life would be like on the inside. I wanted to believe that the cold stares, the name-calling and taunts I had experienced on the first day would soon melt away. That the mobs would disappear for good now that the U.S. military’s best stood guard. That the student troublemakers would turn their attention elsewhere. That eventually Central would embrace me.
It wouldn’t take long for those hopes to fade.
Ernie and Melba have said that for them, each day was a war. For me, it was more of an internal battle: How do I dodge the heel walker? How do I hold my books to avoid attack? How do I manage to get through the day without using my locker or going to the girls’ bathroom? The strain of calculating my every move was consuming. There was no training for us in self-defense or in the ways of nonviolent protest or passive resistance. That came years later for the college students who sparked the sit-in movement at lunch counters throughout the South. Our “training” was on the job. And my earliest lessons came in the hallways between classes.
The noise in the halls of Central was earsplitting the first month. Just imagine a constant stream of about two thousand raucous teenagers wending their way to classes in all different directions over five floors several times a day. Add to the mix nine much-resented black students, and the atmosphere was volatile, even with the presence of our military guards. The soldiers met us at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bates each day for a while and drove us to school. Then, each of us was assigned a military escort to accompany us through the day. The troopers usually waited outside the classroom door until it was time to move to the next class. But I learned early that while the soldiers were there to make sure the nine of us stayed alive, for anything short of that, I was pretty much on my own. They were in a precarious position, for sure. But it seemed to me that too much just seemed to escape their ears and eyes. Like the spitting, for instance.
The band of boys in the black leather jackets were the worst offenders. They seemed to have come from the woods with their dank, moldy smell and their facial stubble, and they made a sport of spitting on me. If you’ve ever been hit by a nasty gob, you know how disgusting it is, how humiliating, how infuriating. The first time, the wet slime just came flying out of nowhere, landing on the bottom left side of my face. My military escort usually walked on my right. I was trying to work my way through the crowded halls between classes on my second day inside when without warning I felt something wet hit my face. I flinched. Immediately, I knew what it was. But who had done it? It was useless trying to single out the villain in the sea of smirking faces quickly moving past me. Was it one of the black leather boys? Or did it come from one of their ponytailed female cohorts? In either case, there was nothing I could do to respond. I had already been warned against retaliation by Dr. Blossom before school even started; responding in kind could lead to my expulsion. And no matter how demeaned I felt, tears were out of the question. I couldn’t let them see my hurt. I couldn’t give them that kind of power. So without a word, I just wiped my face against the sleeve of my dress and kept on trekking. From then on, I stayed on guard, scanning eyes and mouths as I traveled the halls. I learned to jump back quickly or duck to avoid being hit in the face. But I always carried Kleenex, just in case.
Remembering the lessons learned in the halls became an important part of getting through each day. When the black leather boys or their female sidekicks walked close to me and knocked my books out of my hand, I learned never to bend over right away to pick them up, lest I provide the perfect target to get kicked in the backside and onto my face. The first time it happened, I was completely blindsided. In a kind of one-two move, somebody slinked up to me on the left side and knocked against me hard, sending my books flying out of my hands. I guess I was a pretty easy target because I usually carried an armload of books. I didn’t like leaving anything in my locker because it was frequently the target of vandals, as were the lockers of the other eight. The vandals often left crude handwritten notes, like “Nigger go back to Africa.” They sometimes took our books and destroyed our homework. So I usually piled into my arms as much as I could carry. After my books went sailing across the floor, I leaned over to pick them up, and somebody else whacked me with a foot in the bottom. I heard laughter in the background as I went down flat on my face. Stunned and embarrassed, I hopped quickly back onto my feet.
Most times, my guard was at a loss to stop an attack before it happened. The troublemakers were quick and sneaky, and they didn’t seem at all threatened by the military presence. When I pointed out the assailants, the guard could only direct them to the office. One of my regrets is that I never got to know any of the men who journeyed through those halls with me. Unlike some of the other nine, I didn’t have the same escort on a regular basis. I never even learned their names. To this day, I’m still unsure why my escort changed so regularly. The other nine declared I just wore the troopers out walking so fast. Melba got to know her guard pretty well, and she thought the world of her Danny. He had no more power than the other troopers to intervene against the troublemakers, but he seemed to really look after Melba. He warned her when he sensed trouble ahead. He’d radio for help when the bullies approached her. He seemed to empathize with the scared teenager she was, and he taught her how to be a warrior. A couple of my other comrades got to know their guards, too. It just wasn’t that way with me. Maybe I came across as unfriendly or at times annoyed and angry. I wasn’t angry at the troopers as individuals. They were probably decent, hardworking guys, and I never lost sight of the fact that they were the reason we had made it into the school in the first place. But the entire situation made me angry. I was angry that I had to face this kind of torture in a hallowed place of learning, angry that the threat to my life was so great that I needed to be escorted to class by battle-trained soldiers, yet those same soldiers didn’t even have the authority to stop groups of hateful boys and girls from spitting on me and knocking me on my face. Well, I’d always heard that what doesn’t kill you just makes you stronger. If I learned nothing else that year, I learned that. I did grow mentally tougher. I resolved that if the soldiers couldn’t protect me, I’d have to do it myself. That’s why I didn’t have time to chat with them. That’s why I raced through the halls most days just short of a sprint, heading to class as if I were late for work. The soldiers had a job to do, and so did I. As I saw it, part of my job was to avoid making the same mistake twice. That one tumble onto my face taught me to carry my books on the side closer to the wall and never next to the open hallway. And when I had to bend over, I learned to turn my backside to the wall as well. Thank goodness for the walls. At times, they seemed the only protectors I had.
The troublemakers found their protection in numbers. They always traveled in groups, and with the many distractions and the high-decibel unruliness in the halls, their antics could easily escape notice. When I walked past one group or another, impromptu chants would break out: Two, four, six, eight, we ain’t gonna integrate. … Then they’d erupt into laughter. Sometimes I’d feel a sharp kick in the calf or a jab in the arm as I passed them. I learned to just hold
my peace and hope one of the more compassionate teachers caught a glimpse. There were indeed a few teachers who’d step in, call out a name, and write up a disciplinary report. But many of them just turned the other way. It was as though they stood in their classroom doors with their eyes and ears closed. They didn’t want to know anything because to know might have required anyone of decent conscience to do something. I didn’t waste my breath reporting anything to them. I didn’t want to face the frustration that some of my comrades faced when they tried to report violent incidents to teachers and were met with a question: Did any adult witness it? The guards didn’t count.
The teachers and the guards didn’t stop the verbal taunts in the halls, either, so I found my own ways of dealing with those, too. The insults were regular and plentiful, hurled from every corner of the halls like rocks—nigger … baboon … you think you’re white … coon. I tried to envision the words as bubbles left floating in the air. Or I imagined in my head a name-calling game colored folks used to call “playing the dozens,” in which the one who could sling the most degrading insult ruled. When their words hit my ears, I’d kind of smirk to myself and think: I’ve heard better from my own people. That’s all you got? That much was true. I’d had plenty of practice with name-calling all of my life from my own people, and we can be pretty creative in that arena. So I got good at letting the words just bounce off like balls. But I’d be lying if I said I managed to do so every time. Some days I just wasn’t in the mood for any of it. Some days I was so mentally exhausted that I didn’t have the energy to guard my heart. In those low moments, when the troublemakers hurled their insults, they smashed my spirit like bricks. It took all of my energy just to stay on my feet and keep moving forward to the next class.
A Mighty Long Way Page 11