A Mighty Long Way

by Carlotta Walls Lanier

  And each time I encountered a rare soul who seemed to recognize that, I considered it a real blessing.

  CHAPTER 7

  Star-Studded Summer

  When the segregationists failed to force the remaining eight of us out of Central with their telephone threats, sidewalk taunts, and courtroom battles, they began targeting our parents. And they hit where it hurt—our parents’ pockets and pocketbooks.

  I first noticed that something strange was going on with my father when he began arriving home from work in the middle of the day on a regular basis. More and more often, when I made it home from school, Daddy was already there. Before, he had rarely made it home before supper.

  During the spring of 1958, Daddy landed a job as a subcontractor on a new grocery store chain opening in Little Rock. He was hopeful because this was a major construction job expected to last for months. That meant steady work and steady income. For his first day on the job, he left home around sunrise, as usual. But when I returned from school that day, he was already home. He and Mother were deep in conversation in their bedroom.

  “They laid me off,” I heard him say.

  It had happened again. Daddy would get a job, and then a few hours or a few days later, he would be told for no apparent reason that his services were no longer needed. Daddy was a meticulous brick mason who had never had trouble finding or keeping work—until now. I knew this had to be part of the segregationists’ scheme to punish him and anyone else involved in the integration of Central. They had already targeted the Arkansas Gazette in a well-publicized campaign to hurt the newspaper’s profits. The Gazette had featured editorials that supported integration with the argument that it was the law of the land. The newspaper’s coverage of the events at Central seemed more balanced than that of its local competitor, the Arkansas Democrat, which favored segregation. But to the segregationists, there was no middle ground and no such thing as neutral; the Gazette was the enemy. Just months earlier, during the Christmas season, unnamed organizers had announced a boycott against businesses that advertised in the paper. The intention of the campaign was clear: to impact the newspaper’s bottom line by taking away its primary source of revenue—advertising dollars. When the Gazette got wind of the boycott, it published on its front page this unsigned letter that had been circulating throughout the community in the days before Christmas:

  Plans are in the making for a massive crusade to be launched against stores whose ads appear in the Arkansas Gazette.

  The Gazette has played a leading role in breaking down our segregation laws, destroying time-honored traditions that have made up our southern way of life, and at last bringing upon the people of Little Rock the most insufferable outrage ever visited upon an American city. The people thus outraged have awakened. They have discovered that this infamous Gazette has a source of revenue. They have further discovered that your store contributes to the Gazette source of income with frequent ads.

  A crusade, using not one approach but many, lasting not one day or month but many days and many months, is to be launched not only against the Gazette but against your store as long as it advertises in the Arkansas Gazette.

  Each ad you place in the Arkansas Gazette is to be a positive notification to every outraged white person that your store ignores their feelings and does not care for their business.

  As negroes try to push their way deeper into the white schools and white society, race relations will continue to be inflamed. This will prove a perfect atmosphere to carry on this crusade.

  There is a rising tide of race feeling—in fact, a revolution is beginning in the South and in Little Rock. Your store and all stores that advertise in the Arkansas Gazette will be placed on one side or the other. This is your notice to make your own choice.

  Sincerely,

  An Indignant Group

  The newspaper also had run a front-page rebuttal, calling the letter a “vicious and deliberate distortion” of the paper’s position. While the newspaper was the “immediate target,” editors wrote, it was not the only one. I now knew that firsthand. I’d heard talk among my comrades that some of their parents had lost jobs, too. Jefferson’s father was laid off from his longtime job at International Harvester, which manufactured agricultural machinery, construction equipment, and other products. I often saw Mr. Thomas at the Bateses’ home during the day. Gloria’s mother, Mary Ray, also was having trouble at work and eventually would be forced out of her job. So was Elizabeth’s mother. They all suffered quietly, but when Melba’s mother, Lois Pattillo, was informed that her contract as a seventh-grade English teacher at a North Little Rock junior high school would not be renewed the next year, she bravely decided to go public with her struggle. Mrs. Pattillo, a divorcée who was the family’s sole breadwinner, wrote a statement and called the newspapers. On May 7, the Gazette ran her story on the front page, and it was picked up by media around the world. The resulting publicity ultimately helped Mrs. Pattillo get her job back.

  My father wasn’t quite as fortunate. He still could not land a decent contract in Arkansas. My grandfathers helped out as much as they could. Grandpa Cullins mostly took small jobs as the primary contractor on construction projects for black churches, schools, and businesses. That allowed him to bypass the racists, and he was able to hire Daddy to work for him. Big Daddy also gave Daddy more work hours in the café/pool hall. And Mother went back to work. Still, my parents were struggling financially. Mother began paying more attention to price tags in the grocery store and buying just the essentials. The occasional splurges on clothing, furnishings, and out-of-town trips also came to a halt.

  Then, one day my parents told me that Daddy would be going to Los Angeles, California, for the summer to work. He had heard that plenty of good-paying construction jobs were available there. The news was bittersweet. I was happy that Daddy, who took such pride in his work, finally would be able to do the kind of work he enjoyed and make the money he deserved. But I would miss him. When Daddy was away for even a day, I always felt less secure.

  Ernie’s graduation helped to take my mind off Daddy’s departure. I was so proud of my friend. His graduation said to the world that even under the most extreme circumstances, black students could perform as well as any others. Ernie had persevered through a hell that only the nine of us knew, and he’d completed all but this final walk across the stage. I wanted to be there to support him and was disappointed to learn that we would not be able to attend. Each graduate was given only six tickets for family members. School officials had already banned any nonwhite journalists from the graduation ceremony for security reasons, and they were not apt to make any special arrangements for the other seven of us black Central students. As expected, there had been a higher than usual number of threats. In such a volatile atmosphere, anything could happen.

  On May 27, a Tuesday evening, about forty-five hundred parents, guests, and school officials gathered at Quigley Stadium for the big event. Hundreds of National Guard troops were there, and practically every police officer and detective on the Little Rock force had been called to duty. Some were assigned to keep watch over the homes of Superintendent Blossom and Central’s principal, Jess Matthews, who were at graduation and feared their properties could become bomb targets. I gathered with my family in the den just before eight p.m. to listen to a radio broadcast of the ceremony. That familiar knot in my stomach tightened as I listened, hoping that those with hateful intentions wouldn’t ruin Ernie’s special night. Governor Faubus and his crew of die-hard segregationists already had proclaimed the first year of integration at Central a dismal failure. Who knew if one of those loonies would make it a self-fulfilled prophecy with some final, desperate act?

  Ernie was among 602 graduates to receive their diplomas that night. About fifty minutes into the ceremony, his name was called. It seemed as though all of Little Rock—maybe even the entire nation—was holding its breath. This was the most publicized commencement in history, and all of the attention boiled down to this mom
ent. There was not a sound. No laughter, no cheers, no applause, none of the celebratory expressions that had accompanied the names of the other graduates. Just silence. I exhaled as I imagined Ernie proudly walking across that stage—the first colored student ever to do so. Surely all those ghosts of our history—those unnamed colored warriors who’d risked torture by their white slave owners to learn the words in their Bibles, who’d braved the woods, the waters, the whips, and the snarling dogs and died without ever reaching brighter shores—surely they were helping to lift his head and straighten his shoulders now.

  The next day, under President Eisenhower’s orders, the National Guard was withdrawn. A newspaper report estimated that the cost of federal protection for the Little Rock Nine that school year had been a whopping $3.4 million. That was a staggering figure in 1958, more than twice the amount it had cost to build Central thirty years earlier.

  The media also took note of one special guest who had attended the graduation with Ernie’s family: Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time, Dr. King was clearly on the rise, having achieved acclaim as leader of the successful Montgomery bus boycott. He had not yet achieved the legendary status that would come in the years ahead; he was just another man in the crowd. The mention of Dr. King in the newspaper made me flash back to the first time I met him. He had come to Little Rock to speak and was staying at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bates, who invited the nine of us to meet him. I brought my friend Bunny along, and meeting Dr. King remains one of the highlights of her life, as it is mine. But I have to chuckle because to this day, my most vivid personal memory of one of the world’s most revered leaders is not of eloquent words or a suit-and-tie moment. It is of him dressed down, eating barbecue, and drinking beer around a card table in the basement of Mr. and Mrs. Bates’s home.

  Dr. King’s quiet presence spoke to the national significance of Ernie’s graduation. Now, for Ernie, Central was history. He was heading to Michigan State University in the fall. For me, Central was history, too—at least for a while. Summer had officially arrived, and not a moment too soon.

  Within days of Ernie’s graduation, the eight of us took a plane to Chicago to be honored by the Chicago Defender. It was the first plane ride for most of us, including Mother, whom Mrs. Bates had selected as chaperone for the trip. Minnijean met us there, and we were all thrilled to see her again and to vacation together for several days in this city we all had read and heard about but had never seen.

  We stayed downtown in an integrated luxury hotel. Gloria and I roomed together, Minnie and Melba, Elizabeth and Thelma, and the three guys. The newspaper honored the nine of us with the Robert Sengstacke Abbott Award, named for the founder and editor of the Chicago Defender, who was the most successful black newspaper publisher of his era. He had been an early advocate of civil rights for Negroes and had used the pages of his newspaper to encourage colored men and women in the South to move north to pursue a better life. The banquet in our honor was held at the Morrison Hotel, a forty-six-story tower that at the time was the world’s tallest hotel and a longtime Chicago landmark. It was razed just seven years later. All nine of us were overwhelmed by the grandeur of the place but even more by the size and enthusiasm of the crowd. More than five hundred people gathered in the Cameo Ballroom to be part of the ceremony. I could hardly believe that so many people in this great city had come there to see us. In Little Rock, we had drawn crowds for sure, but most of them wanted to wring our necks, not hug them. Here, people stood to their feet to applaud us. I saw in their faces a reflection of pride, of something far beyond this moment. They called us brave and told us we were heroes and that they had been pulling for us. For the first time, it really hit me—the magnitude, the scope, of what the nine of us had done. It wasn’t just about each of us having access to the best education available in Little Rock. It was about parting once closed doors for colored children everywhere. It was about the sons, daughters, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews of the men and women in the Cameo Ballroom this night. It was about the crowds of people who would fill such rooms in city after city that summer as we traveled throughout the country to meet our supporters and pick up awards.

  John Sengstacke, editor of the Chicago Defender and nephew of the newspaper’s founder, invited us to his home, a mansion on the South Side of Chicago. I had never met colored folks who lived like this. I was amazed to see a house full of black servants. We were ushered into the basement, which included a family room with a theater. But as awestruck as I was by Mr. Sengstacke’s home, I was equally smitten by his handsome son, who was about my age. The Sengstackes also invited us to their summer home in Michigan City, Indiana, about an hour from downtown Chicago. There, we were again entertained royally with a host of activities far beyond our realm of experiences, including a boat ride on the family’s private lake. In those few days, the nine of us shared more laughter and fun than we had the entire year at Central. We felt like teenagers again, carefree and silly, not nine symbols to be either admired or loathed. Little did we know this was just the first stop in what would be a star-studded summer.

  In July, we took another plane ride, this time to Cleveland. Mrs. Eckford, Elizabeth’s mother, chaperoned. The NAACP was awarding us its prestigious Spingarn Medal, presented for outstanding achievement. The award was named for Joel Elias Spingarn, a lifelong civil rights advocate, one of the early white leaders and later board chairman of the NAACP. Spingarn was a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University and one of the founders of the publishing house Harcourt Brace & Company. His desire was to draw attention to the distinguished achievements of the American Negro with an award that would inspire the ambitions of young people in the community. Spingarn left $20,000 in his will to ensure that the award, a gold medal, would continue into perpetuity. Mrs. Bates and the nine of us were the first and still the only group ever to receive it. I still feel extremely humbled to be mentioned among the great politicians, scientists, historians, scholars, athletes, authors, entertainers, civil rights advocates, and Nobel Peace Prize winners who have been recipients. They include many men and women whose lives I had studied at Dunbar: W. E. B. Du Bois, George Washington Carver, James Weldon Johnson, Carter Woodson, Charles Chesnutt, Mary McLeod Bethune, Marian Anderson, A. Philip Randolph, Paul Robeson, Thurgood Marshall, Ralph Bunche, and Jackie Robinson. In 1957, the year before we received the award, it was presented to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

  The ceremony was held July 11, 1958, in the banquet hall of a downtown hotel, and once again, the room was packed. In one photo used by many news organizations from that night, all nine of us are wearing the medals, attached to royal blue ribbons trimmed in gold. All of us are smiling broadly, except Elizabeth and Ernie, who must have been just tired. The other girls are all wearing solid pastel dresses; mine is plaid. Terry is mugging for the camera, and my face is turned toward him, smiling more at him than the camera. He probably had uttered something witty. I think all of us were just overwhelmed by the attention and unsure how to handle this new spotlight.

  Sometime after that photo was snapped, Terry and I decided to have a bit of fun with one of the reporters covering the event. I was standing with Terry in the rear of the banquet hall when I saw the reporter making his way toward us. It was too late for me to make a discreet move in the opposite direction, which I usually did when I saw a reporter headed my way. So I stood politely next to Terry, a young intellectual even then, as he answered a question related to the award. When the reporter asked for his name, Terry responded with a straight face, “George Washington.”

  Scribbling quickly, the reporter turned to me. “And your name?”

  “Martha Washington,” I replied, continuing Terry’s lame joke.

  Without even a hint of suspicion, the reporter scampered off to his next subject. At first, Terry and I cracked up, but before leaving the room, we thought better of our little joke, especially when we imagined what Mrs. Bates and our parents might say. We tracked down the reporter and gave our
real names. That remains one of my funniest memories of Cleveland.

  Before leaving the city, the nine of us were treated to dinner at the legendary Dearing’s Restaurant, known for its “Original Golden Brown Fried Chicken.” The popular eatery had an array of food that reminded me of home: ribs, shrimp, homemade rolls, and pastries. It was comfort food, but this was a well-appointed, black-owned restaurant (complete with white linen tablecloths) that also drew white residents of the city. Like the events that took place the summer I was eight years old, these experiences opened the gates to a life far more progressive and sophisticated than anything I had ever experienced in Little Rock.