A Mighty Long Way

by Carlotta Walls Lanier

  The next day brought the arrests and charges against three more men: John Taylor Coggins, a thirty-nine-year-old auto salesman; Jesse Raymond Perry, a twenty-four-year-old truck driver; and Samuel Graydon Beavers, a forty-nine-year-old carpenter who worked at the state mental hospital. Bail was set at $50,000 for all five suspects. Basking in the success of his round-the-clock police work, Chief Smith announced that the bombers had planned a fourth attack of an office building occupied by the Prudential Insurance Company. Heavy traffic downtown apparently scared the bombers away.

  Sims quickly pleaded guilty for his role, after admitting to an Arkansas Gazette reporter that he had placed three sticks of dynamite under Nalley’s car and thrown ten sticks into the school board office. He received a five-year sentence and agreed to testify against Perry and Lauderdale, the alleged mastermind. At Lauderdale’s trial nearly three months later, prosecutors called the bombings a “diabolical scheme.” But the suspect’s attorney tried a not so subtle appeal to the all-white jury: “This man has the sympathy of the state of Arkansas and the sunny South,” the attorney said, gesturing to his client. “Don’t let New York or Chicago or Time magazine tell you what to do in this case.”

  The jury, which included nine men and three women, deliberated just one hour and twenty-five minutes before convicting Lauderdale. He was sentenced to three years in prison, two years fewer than the coconspirator who had cooperated with police and testified against him. Coggins and Perry also received three-year sentences. Beavers’s trial was postponed for a year because of his poor health, but he was later convicted and received a similar sentence.

  I have to admit that I paid scant attention to the details of the case at the time. Chalk it up to my youth—I turned seventeen the December after the bombings. But I just didn’t feel personally threatened. I knew that by the time the bombers targeted city officials, they already had gone after Mr. and Mrs. Bates many times with burning crosses, rocks, bombs, and even bullets. I didn’t realize, though, that Mrs. Bates felt so threatened she sent telegrams to the Justice Department and the White House, pleading for federal protection. But no such help was forthcoming. She and Mr. Bates ultimately relied on the security provided by dedicated neighbors and friends, who stood watch with their own shotguns and pistols outside the couple’s home. Somehow, though, I just didn’t make the leap in my mind that these bombings of city targets signaled a sense of desperation among the segregationists and that perhaps any one of the five of us black students or our family members could be next. I was just eager to put Central, the segregationists, the bombings, and all they represented behind me—so eager that I spent more time thinking about the future than the ugliness swirling around me. My graduation from Central was just months away, and all I could think about was where I would go to college.

  Many of my friends at Mann were planning to attend historically black universities, including Talladega, Fisk, Tennessee State, and Tuskegee Institute. While I’ve always had much respect for those great institutions, I wanted to explore all of my options. I had endured Central mainly because I wanted to have a broad range of choices for my future. It didn’t make sense to me now to limit myself. I knew that I wanted to go to school out of state, and I began collecting brochures and other information to research various colleges. Ernie’s aunt Mrs. Gravely, a counselor at Dunbar, was advising me. It never even crossed my mind to use the college placement office at Central, and even though I was an honor student, no one in the office there sought me out, either. When Ernie came home for Christmas, he suggested I apply to Michigan State. I was lukewarm on the idea at first, but I trusted Ernie, who was now a sophomore there and a big fan of the school. So I applied. Several other colleges also caught my eye, including Brandeis in Massachusetts, Grinnell in Iowa, and the brand-new University of California at Santa Barbara. I applied to all of them, too. Mother kept pushing for me to apply to Vassar or Wellesley. Both schools had a fine reputation, but Mother also relished the idea of having a daughter at an elite private all-girls school. I just didn’t think that kind of environment was for me. A coed school with people from all walks of life was more to my liking. Eventually, my heart settled in a big way on Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The school had a work-study program that allowed students to take classes one quarter and work in the field of study for college credit the next. The program seemed so visionary. It would give me a chance to take classes in the medical field and explore whether I really wanted to become a doctor. Such real-world connections could also become a stepping-stone for future job opportunities. I was sold and couldn’t wait to hear back. I still recall the moment I pulled the letter from the admissions office out of my mailbox and ran inside to open it. My heart thumped with such excitement and anticipation as I ripped open the envelope and scanned the letter for the answer I’d been waiting to hear. But just as quickly, all of that excitement was reduced to a huge lump in my throat as I read that admissions officials were recommending I take a year off. The letter said the university was aware of the stressful years I’d endured at Central and thought that before settling into the seriousness of college study, I needed to rest. Then the letter said something like “We will hold a place for you for the 1961–62 school year.” I was devastated. I didn’t want to wait another year to pursue my dreams. Leaving Little Rock to go to college was the one thing that had kept me motivated and hopeful. I couldn’t even entertain the thought of waiting. I’ve never been a patient person. I felt that all of my dreams were starting to slip away. I felt rejected. I folded the letter, put it away, and walked around for weeks in silent shock.

  Little did I know that life was about to get a whole lot worse.

  CHAPTER 10

  An Explosive Night

  When I made it to my bedroom the night of February 9, 1960, it was raining mud. At least that’s how it appeared to me when I heard heavy wind and rain slapping against the house. I looked up at the window and saw thick droplets of rain mixed with red dirt sliding down the windowpanes.

  It was about nine-thirty, my favorite time of the night. I savored those moments of solitude just before bedtime when I got to unwind, listen to the radio, and think. The house was quiet. Daddy hadn’t come in yet from his nighttime job at Big Daddy’s place. Loujuana and Tina, then eleven and four, were asleep in their room a few steps up the hall, and Mother was in her and Daddy’s room near the front door.

  I clicked on the clock radio resting on the nightstand. The AM dial was already tuned to one of my favorite stations, WLAC, which broadcast nightly from Nashville. It was one of a few white stations that brought the soulful sounds of black rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and jazz artists—the Platters, Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Etta James—to places they’d never been before, the homes and lives of my white peers throughout the nation. It tickled me when I imagined that maybe some of my white classmates at Central were listening secretly, too. I particularly enjoyed a program called Randy’s Record Highlights, which aired shortly after ten o’clock.

  As I changed into my pajamas, my mind felt at ease. I’d made it to the home stretch at Central, I thought. For weeks, things had been calm, no protesters or major incidents, and graduation was less than four months away. I’d finally stopped sulking after the rejection from Antioch and decided on a college. My decision-making process had been quite simple: I accepted the first school that wrote to me with good news after the big letdown—Michigan State. Michigan State wanted me right then, and I was eager to be wanted. After such disappointment, I had been in no mood to wait to hear from my second and third choices. By the time the acceptance letters came from Brandeis and the University of California, I had already settled on going to Michigan. I was even starting to get excited. I liked the idea of getting lost among the thousands of students on campus. I’d get to come and go as I pleased, and no one would even notice. Finally, I would have a normal life. Dances. Concerts. Football games. Maybe even a boyfriend. I’d missed out on so much at Central. I could hardly wa
it to end this chapter of my life and start anew. But for the moment, it was bedtime. I clicked off the light in my room, crawled into bed with my thoughts, and let Etta and Fats serenade me to sleep.

  No sooner had I closed my eyes, it seemed, than I was shaken by a thunderous boom. The house shook, and I could hear glass crashing to the floor in the front of the house. I sat up quickly with my hands gripping the sides of my bed, as if to steady the room. For a moment, I felt frozen in place. My eyes, wide with fear, darted around the pitch-black room. What was that? Was I dreaming? The explosion had come from the front.

  Then, oh, my God—my little sisters! Mother! I had to find them. I leapt out of bed. As soon as my bare feet landed on the cold floor, I took off running through my bedroom. My first stop was the den, just outside my bedroom door. It was eerily dark and still. I turned toward the hall and ran up to the front of the house.

  I was halfway up the hall when I saw Loujuana and Tina standing in their nightgowns with Mother in her bedroom door at the other end of the hall. When I reached them, Mother and the girls looked dazed and bewildered but unhurt. We stared at one another, too shaken to even speak. Little Tina’s eyes moved quickly from Mother to me, searching our faces for clues. A haze of smoke floated through the darkness from the living room to the hallway, where we stood. The smoke hurt my eyes, and an unfamiliar scent filled the air. It smelled as if something had blown up in a chemistry lab.

  Inside, I was trembling. I felt helpless and horrified. And I needed Daddy. He would tell me everything would be okay and make me feel safe. But he must have been working late—it was eleven, and he hadn’t yet made it home. I suddenly felt a painful sense of responsibility, as though I needed to step up and somehow make the situation right. But I didn’t know how. I could feel real panic rising in my throat. I had the odd thought that the stoic Carlotta, the one who always felt her hard work and smarts would make everything okay, who had believed that anything was possible if she stood firm and stayed strong, was now at a total loss.

  The sound of my mother’s voice quelled my panic. She was calm and restrained, but I heard helplessness, too. “Call your daddy,” she said.

  Relieved to be doing something, I quickly headed back down the hall to the kitchen and dialed the numbers to Big Daddy’s place as fast as my jittery fingers could move. Trying not to sound frantic, I asked for Daddy and told him to come home right away, that something bad had happened. He slammed down the phone and must have dashed right out. It didn’t occur to me to call the police, but by the time I hung up the telephone, officers were knocking on our front door. Mother talked to them, and I stepped inside the living room with my sisters to scan the scene.

  The blinds hung askew, partially ripped down by the blast. Mother had made nice white linen drapes and matching sheers for all of the windows in the living room—the picture window overlooking the front yard and the two more traditional windows that sat on each side of a large gas fireplace on the side wall. The drapes now looked dingy in the smoky room. They flapped wildly as the cold air and rain whipped through the two windows framing the fireplace. The windows had been shattered, and tiny shards of glass covered the floor. The sight made me unspeakably sad. Mother had worked so hard to get this room just right.

  My gut was telling me that this was no accident. Someone had deliberately tried to tear my home apart. My eyes roved the room as if I were an investigator. Something had clearly exploded, but there wasn’t a visible hole anywhere. Through the smoke, I could see that the rest of the room, thank God, had remained intact. It didn’t take long to connect the dots. Mr. and Mrs. Bates had had crosses burned in their yard and a brick thrown through their window when tensions over Central were at their hottest. And though I’d paid only scant attention to the Labor Day bombings, it all seemed relevant to me now. Could the segregationists have come after me in my home, just when it seemed my battle was almost over?

  The two officers set out with their flashlights around the perimeter of our house, and Mother closed the door again to wait for Daddy. Tina stepped toward Mother, unaware of the glass that lay between them. But Mother’s sharp voice stopped her in her tracks.

  “Get back,” she said. “Put on some shoes.”

  The three of us girls rushed back to our rooms and pulled on our shoes and bathrobes. By the time we made it back to the living room, Daddy was home. It had taken him less than ten minutes, but the waiting had felt like an eternity to me. The instant I saw him, I felt calmer. As I looked at him standing there in his black coat and matching hat, with his arm around Mother’s tiny waist, I knew he was about to take charge and get to the bottom of this. He clearly looked worried and wanted to know: Were we okay? He kneeled down to pick up Tina. Moments later, he disappeared outside with the police. Mr. Fox from across the street came inside to talk to Mother. I kept an eye on Tina and Loujuana, who wandered around the living room, dodging the glass on their tiptoes. Mr. Fox and Mother huddled nearby. As usual, my ears perked up. Mr. Fox tried to whisper, but I caught wind of a word that sent a chill down my spine. I could hardly believe my ears: Did he just say “dynamite”? That was it. That was the strange smell.

  Then I knew for sure: The segregationists had bombed my home. They’d resorted to dynamite to run me away from Central. They would stop at nothing, even murder, to keep me out. My knees felt weak as that terrifying reality sank in: My family and I could have been killed.

  I suddenly needed fresh air. More than that, I felt compelled to see the damage for myself. At least then I’d know for sure what they had done. For me, knowing was a comfort. I could handle what I knew. It was not knowing that made me feel vulnerable and afraid.

  Despite Daddy’s instructions for us to stay inside, I felt pulled to the front door. I walked outside, grabbed the wrought-iron railing, and leapt two steps to the ground. I was startled to see that practically everyone from the neighborhood had gathered in their nightclothes under umbrellas and plastic rain caps in the Rice family’s yard across the street.

  “Are you okay?” a voice yelled out.

  I immediately regretted my decision to leave the house. I wanted nothing more than to disappear. Maybe it was naive to think that I could go outside and watch what was going on like anyone else, but that’s what I wanted—what I always wanted—just to blend in. Even in that first year at Central, when the television cameras rolled constantly, I’d managed to stay mostly in the background and let Ernie, Melba, and Minnie do all the talking. Now, I was the object of everyone’s attention. And it horrified me to think that all of my neighbors were standing out in the cold rain because of me.

  I was chilled by yet another new reality: My decision to go to Central and to stay no matter what had brought violence, not only to my home, but to my neighbors, to the people who’d watched out for me since I was a toddler. Any one of them could have been hurt by the explosion. My stomach churned with guilt and anger.

  Still, I kept walking to the 15th Street side of the house, the same side where the windows had blown out. Just a few steps later, I stopped dead in my tracks. There, at the base of the chimney, I could see where the dynamite had landed. A gaping hole, about two feet in diameter, was a testament to the power of the blast. Bricks were strewn all about. All I could do was stand there, feeling myself become soaked with the heavy rain. What if the dynamite had gone through the window and landed in the living room instead of hitting the ground? Would my house still be standing? Would my family have survived? Would I?

  Finally, I turned and walked slowly back through the door. For the rest of the night, I was numb—and that seemed to be how we all dealt with the shock. Mother sent Loujuana down the street to spend the night at Uncle Teet’s house. Tina dozed on the sofa in the den. Mother and I stayed indoors, listening quietly to the loud banging from outdoors as Daddy and Mr. Fox boarded up the windows. First, we sat in the kitchen at the counter, each of us staring past the other into space. I felt more vulnerable than ever before. I wasn’t normally the type that spent
much time thinking about “what if,” but I couldn’t stop the thoughts flashing through my mind nonstop. My family and I were at the mercy of whoever had done this. Everything—our newly remodeled home, all the things that Mother and Daddy had worked so hard to attain, even our lives—could be taken away in a second with one more explosion. And maybe next time, it would be more “successful.”

  After a while, Mother went to check on Tina in the den, and I followed. Neither of us said a word for what seemed like hours. My heart was loaded with such guilt. What could I do or say that would either comfort or explain? Just breathing was all I could manage. As I looked at Tina, lying there so peacefully, part of me yearned to trade places, to be too young and innocent to understand the hate that bred this kind of terror.

  I snapped out of it when Mother turned to me and said that I should go back to bed. I could feel myself resist. How could she possibly expect me to fall asleep, as though this were any other night and our home had not been bombed? But I knew better than to question her, so I did as I was told.

  Sleep doesn’t come on command, though. My brain was so crowded with thoughts that I felt dizzy. This was my home, the safest place in the world, until now. How could I possibly sleep? How could I ever feel completely safe again here? How could I ever feel safe again anywhere? It was one thing for the segregationists to spit and shake their fists at me from the sidewalks of the school when I expected it. There, I still felt some control. I could refuse to let their words wound me. I could remind myself what I’d been taught at home: that those who hate are just ignorant and that I must never, ever stoop to their level. But it was an entirely different matter to be caught off guard in the middle of the night in the place where I’d known only love, peace, and protection. Were the segregationists just trying to scare me and my family—or were they really trying to kill me?