A Mighty Long Way

by Carlotta Walls Lanier

  Lisa Frazier Page

  I thank God for the generations of civil rights warriors, particularly Carlotta and her eight comrades, who with great personal sacrifice and suffering, kicked down the doors that I have walked through. It has been the honor of my life, Carlotta, to help you share your powerful, historic story. Thank you for trusting me and opening your life to me. I am grateful for the wonderful friendship that has developed. Thanks, too, Ike, Whitney, and Brooke for sharing your wife and mother with me these many months.

  To my literary agent, Linda Loewenthal of the David Black Literary Agency, you have been an awesome adviser and representative. I will be forever grateful for your connecting me with Carlotta and this wonderful opportunity.

  To the staff at Ballantine/One World and Random House that had a hand in producing this book, thank you for putting so much care and consideration into every step of the process. I’m especially grateful to our editor, Melody Guy, whose thoughtfulness, passion, and great ideas helped to refine the book; and Porscha Burke, who was always there with the right answers, a kind spirit, and a quiet assertiveness that kept things moving on time.

  I could not have done this without the support of my husband, Kevin Page, and our children—Enjoli, Danielle, Kevin, Jr., and Kyle—who fill my days with purpose. You remind me what’s really important. I love you all beyond meaure.

  I am forever indebted to my parents, Clinton and Nettie Frazier, who gave me the diary where I first learned to tell stories. Your love and support have been a steady source of strength in my life. Thanks also to the rest of my family, who have always been there for me, especially my sister and brother-in-law (Melissa and Zeke Moses), my brother and sister-in-law (Clifford and Tiffani Frazier), Aunt Joyce (Joyce Richardson), Buffy (April Bruns), and all of my nieces and nephews. I have been blessed, too, with wonderful in-laws, particularly my husband’s parents, Richard and Miriam Page, who have been patient and understanding (especially those times when I’ve had to “borrow” your office all day during family visits). I’ve appreciated every word of encouragement, home-cooked meal, and the moments you, Kolin, and Geraldine (my brother-and sister-in-law), or Zina (my sister-in-law) entertained the children while I worked.

  To my life mentors, Ada Hannibal Green and the late Barbara Butler, thank you for seeing something worthwhile in me early on and investing your time and heart to open the world beyond Bogalusa to me through my girlhood travels with you and the Spartanette Service Club.

  I am also grateful to work at The Washington Post, where my editors generously granted me the time away to do this important work, even as our industry was experiencing tremendous change and uncertainty. Thanks especially to my editors: Milton Coleman for your early encouragement and advice; Tom Wilkinson for your enthusiasm about the project and kind words; and Robert McCartney and Phyllis Jordan, for letting me go and welcoming me back. Thanks also to my journalism colleagues and cherished friends, who eagerly read chapter drafts, advised and encouraged me, and even babysat, most especially Wil Haygood, Karima and Dion Haynes, Cheryl Thompson, Donald Washington, Avis Thomas-Lester, Deneen Brown, Lonnae O’Neal Parker, Tracey Reeves, Tammy Collins Carter, and Keith Woods.

  To my dear friend, Lavette Broussard, who fills in for my out-of-town family, I’m grateful for all you do. And to the girls (and guy) who grew up with me into adulthood—Deadra Courtney (Ann), Veronica Smith, Cassandra Price, Kelvin Preston, and Tess Snipes—I value all we’ve shared and learned along the way.

  A CONVERSATION WITH

  CARLOTTA WALLS LANIER

  AND LISA FRAZIER PAGE

  Lisa Frazier Page: What made you decide to finally write your memoir?

  Carlotta Walls LaNier: I was constantly asked to write my account of what happened as a member of the Little Rock Nine as I spoke to high school and college students. It is clear that we are nine different people, each with a story no greater or lesser, just different. I needed to tell mine, and I wanted vindication for my friend and neighbor, Herbert Monts.

  LFP: What responses have you received from readers and from audiences at your signings? Have you heard from the other members of the Little Rock Nine since your publication?

  CWL: The responses from readers and audiences have been great—mostly positive. A great deal of people say that it’s unbelievable that I endured. Most of the Nine are very pleased and feel I’ve answered some questions for them as well. Not all of them have stated their opinion, however, because some have been too emotionally stirred by the contents to finish the book.

  LFP: You describe in detail the personalities of each of the other Nine in the early days of the integration. How would you say their personalities have changed since then—if at all?

  CWL: None of us is surprised that each of us has lived a life that has been both interesting and successful. Central gave us the opportunity to develop our character in ways we could not have imagined at the time. We must have been driven then, because when we meet today, I look around and see nine still very driven people. I think each of us has become only more of what we once were. Ernie says we act like we did fifty-two years ago when we get together: revert back to fourteen to sixteen years of age.

  LFP: Have you spoken with Herbert Monts again after the book was published?

  CWL: Yes, we have spoken a number of times. In fact, he came to the book signing event at the Central High historic site. He is very proud of the book and grateful, but he also does not want me to feel guilty about what happened to him.

  LFP: How has your family responded to your book?

  CWL: My family is very pleased and proud. My sister Loujuana Terry is so pleased that she continues to buy books and give them away. My sister Tina says it had to be as cathartic for me as it was for her. My mother says she has finished it, but I don’t know for sure. She loves the pictures!

  It is very emotional for Mother and my sisters on the occasions when they come to my book signings. I must say, the first reading and signing at the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver found my mother surrounded by some of the 200 people in attendance, and she was autographing her picture! I was happy for her!

  LFP: Your descriptions of your ancestral history are so intriguing, from Hiram Holloway to Big Daddy’s grandparents. How much of your family history did your parents and grandparents share with you? How much did you have to research on your own? Where did you go to learn more about your ancestors?

  CWL: Family stories were common in my growing-up days, but as far as the small details depicted in my book, I have to thank my sister Tina Walls for her meticulous research. She is becoming the historian of the family.

  LFP: You state that your relationships with the men in your family heavily influenced the woman you became—your sense of independence and your determination to succeed. What resources would you recommend to young women today, many of whom aren’t as fortunate to grow up with such positive male influences, so that they may also develop those strengths?

  CWL: I would recommend finding a positive role model. We all live in a world where there is someone who can be that person. I was able to take the good from each of the men in my family and develop an understanding of myself. It begins inside oneself, which is where I learned to look (and to depend on) first.

  LFP: One of the things your father said to you as you faced disrespectful taunts from whites in your community was, “You are a Walls. You must never, ever stoop to the level of ignorance.” Do you find that adage still necessary to repeat to yourself? In what occasions, if any, have you found yourself encouraging others with those words today?

  CWL: I often visit secondary schools, and when I speak with younger students in those schools, I often tell this story. I encourage them to take pride in who they are and in their own family name. No one else can tarnish your name but you, so protect it by making the right choices.

  LFP: You speak a lot about the role of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in your community. Your family members and c
ommunity leaders were volunteers, and of course Daisy Bates and Justice Thurgood Marshall were instrumental figures in your experiences at Central High School. How would you describe the organization’s effectiveness today? Who do you see taking up the mantle for championing human rights today?

  CWL: The NAACP recently celebrated its 100th birthday as an organization. This organization has been essential in the fight for equal justice in our country’s history, especially in the mid-twentieth century. It is getting a resurgence with a young executive director, Ben Jealous, and chairperson Roslyn Brock. More young people will look to them within this organization.

  There are many other groups or organizations that also care about the issues that the NAACP single-handedly fought back then—the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to name two. Different groups are standing and fighting for issues that seemed to be all on the shoulders of the NAACP and Urban League during my time as a young person.

  LFP: You wrote, “This was grown-folks business, and Cartelyou and Juanita Walls weren’t apt to discuss grown-folks business with children.” How did your parents balance their needs to protect you with your own steadfastness and determination? How have you achieved that balance with your own children?

  CWL: One of the great differences between my parents’ generation and mine has been in the area of openness. There were very clear lines between the adult world and the children’s place when I was growing up. My husband and I have been more open with our children. I see this as every parents’ challenge: What, when, where is it appropriate to discuss with our children the harder questions of becoming an adult? There is no easy answer. So much depends on the individual personalities of the children.

  LFP: Growing up, did your children—Brooke and Whitney—experience any special treatment (positive or negative) because of who you were?

  CWL: As I say in the book, I didn’t talk about this on the home front for many years. Brooke and Whitney were old enough to be proud when they learned of my role as one of the Little Rock Nine. They never had to be defensive.

  LFP: How did you explain to them what happened to you in high school? Was it something they were always aware of? Did they come to you with any experiences of racism or problems at school?

  CWL: Many kids of color have an experience where something mean is said to them. For some it happens as early as preschool and for others much later. You take each experience and address it in that context. And when my children had to deal with mean-spirited comments, I always made sure that they knew how wonderful they were, and that it was really the other person’s problem, their responsibility to learn how much they were missing by being so narrow-minded.

  LFP: While you were in high school, you weren’t thinking so much about history, you just wanted to get the best education possible. At what point did you really start to understand the historic nature of your actions and the impact that it would have for generations to come?

  CWL: The summer of 1958 was a special time for each of us, but as far as thinking of myself in history, that came years later. The biggest impact came when the nine of us gathered in Little Rock on the occasion of our fortieth anniversary. The President of the United States, Bill Clinton, returned to welcome us back to Little Rock and Central High as it should have been, as he says, forty years prior. Since then, I have tried to wear the mantle with both humility and pride.

  LFP: What is the message you most want others to take away from your story?

  CWL: My story is a part of history. We had the burden of being among the first to integrate a Southern school. We weren’t the first, but the media let the world know. Our struggles were about states’ rights versus federal law, about a governor versus the president of the United States, and about the need for 1,200 troopers to be present for nine kids to go through the doors of a high school, to protect our right to have the best education available.

  My message is twofold: First, I want my readers to understand the times in a mid-twentieth-century Southern city, about the Jim Crow South, and second, to understand what one person can do, can handle, can bear. I hope my story is an inspiration to today’s teenagers who find themselves struggling in their schools.

  READING GROUP QUESTIONS AND

  TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

  1.How integrated were the schools you attended growing up, and how has this shaped your perspective? If not in school, where did you interact with children of other races, and at what point did your world become more integrated—in college, the work place, new neighborhoods?

  2.President Clinton states, “The Civil Rights Movement was led, in no small measure, by … ‘unlikely candidates’ … in a simple quest for a good education”. Who would you say are the unlikely candidates—the everyday heroes, globally, nationally, and locally—advocating change today?

  3.Carlotta was impacted by President Clinton’s description of the Little Rock Nine, when he stated, “These nine people didn’t … just say, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if someone did something to change things.’ These nine people and their families stepped up and said, ‘Here am I, Lord, send me.’” What causes motivate you into action? What would you be willing to do in order to affect change in your community?

  4.The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was instrumental in the fight for civil rights during the 1950s and 1960s. Do you think groups such as the NAACP and the National Urban League are still necessary today? What other outlets have proven effective for discussing race and impacting change?

  5.Carlotta shares several details about her ancestral history, going back as far as her grandparents’ grandparents. How much of your family’s history do you know, and where did you learn of it? How important do you think it is to have access to the stories of previous generations?

  6.At several points in the book Carlotta describes the help she received from her family’s friends—from watching over her as she traveled to New York to tutoring all of the Nine and keeping them up-to-date with their schoolwork. Do you see the same types of community-wide support today? What resources do you feel parents have available for caring for their children in this way?

  7.“The disparities between Dunbar and Central can be traced to their beginnings…. By 1954, the school district was spending $102.25 per child on white students but only $67.75 per child on black students”. Do you see similar discrepancies in the education practices in our nation today?

  8.Cartelyou Walls, Carlotta’s father, mentored the neighborhood children in addition to being a devoted father to his own daughters. Are there adults in your life who mentored you even though you weren’t their child? Have you supported youngsters in your neighborhood or communities, or witnessed others who do so?

  9.“[Uncle Freddie] was aware of his African heritage, but it seemed that everyone around him was a racial mixture of some kind, so skin color mattered little … [and when he encountered racism for the first time] he was disappointed that his parents had allowed him to be caught so off guard by the dynamics of race and skin color”. How have you heard first-generation African immigrants discuss their experiences with race and color in America? How do their perspectives on race differ from those of black Americans you know? What role do region and neighborhood play in those experiences?

  10.The Bateses were “willing to use the editorial pages of their newspaper to take a stand for civil rights and to rally against police brutality, the mistreatment of black war veterans … and other injustices against black residents”. What role do you think the contemporary media plays in crying out for justice? Do any particular publications or programs stand out to you as forerunners in this area? Do you think the media is still anointed to carry out the greater good?

  11.Carlotta discusses newspaper ads that ran during the early days of the school integration that highlighted white parents’ fears that their daughters would be in such close proximity to black boys. Do you think these attitudes still exist today? Do you think tha
t now, more than fifty years after the integration of public schools, we’re living in a postracial society?

  12.On their first day of school, The Little Rock Nine thought that the National Guardsmen blocking the doors were there to protect them—they couldn’t have been more wrong; the guards were there to keep them from entering Central High. Have you encountered a similar experience, where the forces you thought were there to protect you were actually working against you?

  13.After her first day in class, Carlotta asked, “Where was God in all of this? Was it He who had spared us from the wrath of that mob? What if they had gotten inside?” How would you have answered her question?

  14.Carlotta was forced to find ways to cope with all of the insults and taunting from her classmates in school. How have you coped with insults from your peers? Where do you seek solace when you find yourself in a rough and challenging environment?

  15.Despite Central High School being technically integrated, at lunchtime, the Nine sat with one another and white students kept to their own. Do you see segregated school lunchrooms in college and office cafeterias today?

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  CARLOTTA WALLS LANIER attended Michigan State University and graduated from Colorado State College—now the University of Northern Colorado, on whose board of trustees she sits. After working for the YWCA, she founded her own real estate brokerage firm, LaNier and Company. A sought-after lecturer, LaNier speaks across the country, and she has received the Congressional Gold Medal and two honorary doctorate degrees. She is the mother of two children, Whitney and Brooke, and lives in Englewood, Colorado, with her husband, Ira.

  LISA FRAZIER PAGE, an editor and award-winning reporter at The Washington Post, is co-author of the New York Times bestseller The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream. A graduate of New Orleans’s Dillard University, Page holds a master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She grew up in Bogalusa, Louisiana, and lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her husband. They have four children.