Eva looked at Sophia. “Why you?” she asked.
The undertone of suspicion and anger surprised Sophia, but she remembered her friends. Their screams of “nigger lover” rang in her ears. She had no answer. Yes, she thought, why me?
“You’re the one who made me wait in Woolworth’s, remember?”
“Oh, my Lord,” Sophia cried. Why hadn’t she recognized this tall bronze girl who, only four days before, had stood before her, calm and composed, with three little items in her hand. Suddenly she flushed with shame and said, “My name is Sophia Stuart. What’s your name?”
“Eva … Eva Collins. I want to know, why you? I really want to know.”
Sophia said, “I don’t know why. I can’t tell you why. But I do know, at the time, I was not helping you. I was helping myself. It was as if I was drowning, forcing myself up for air … and here we are.”
“Yeah … here we are,” Eva said. “Thank you.” She folded into herself again.
The bus driver picked up passengers at each stop. Finally one boarded who, in horror and great pity, recognized Eva and knew where she should go. Sophia went with him to take her there.
Chapter 17
News flashed around the world that the Guard in the town of Mossville had turned bayonets on Eva Collins, a fifteen-year-old Negro girl, forcing her to face an angry mob. And that Sophia Stuart, a charming Southern young lady from a staunch Mossville family, had assisted the girl.…
Sophia listened to the television news and wanted to believe that she was a charming young lady, but then she remembered the looks on the faces of her friends, the ugly words they had hurled at her; the look on her mother’s face when she had come home, and the words, “Oh, we’re ruined!”
Now Sophia looked at her mother and wondered, How can she be so angry at me? So frozen? Thank God for Ida, she thought. Ida had had the good sense to take me into the backyard, hose me off, strip me down, and help me clean myself.
She glanced sideways at her father, who sat with his hands wedged between his knees, intent on the television.
Then she looked at Burt and lowered her eyes, thinking, What have I done to them?
Finally her mother said, “Charming lady.… Oh, Sophia, I wish it were so, but … oh, why did this happen to us?” These same words had been said over and over since first she heard the news.
“Maybe it’s my fault, stressing that she must obey the law,” her father said. “But I had no idea she’d go out and insist on others obeying!”
“I didn’t insist on anybody,” Sophia said, remaining calm.
“Please. Let’s not lay blame,” Burt said. “If you ask me, I’ll say she’s charming, a lady in the true sense of the word.”
Sophia looked at her mother. She could hear the angry, abusive voices of that mob, and suddenly she realized her parents were not as much angry as they were afraid. She felt a rush of love for them as the words tumbled out of her. “I did what I had to do. I don’t know why, but I did. And if what I have done is so disastrous, then the disaster is mine.”
Her words hung on the silence. A sudden shiver seized her, as if a warm security blanket had been snatched away and she was exposed to a cold, blinding light. But her world was slowly turning right side up again, and she was beginning to see things clearly. She glanced from one face to the other. Again she remembered Marsha, Kim, and Meredith, and she knew. She wanted the love of her family and the respect of her friends, but she no longer needed to see the world as they saw it. She looked at Burt and smiled. What she had gained was the beginning to the end of her pain.
Author’s Note
On May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court changed the course of U.S. history in a reversal of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1889. Plessy v. Ferguson upheld a Louisiana law requiring separate railway facilities for whites and people of African origin classified then as colored. Mr. Justice Brown announced the Court’s opinion:
… If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them on the same plane.
Thus was created the “separate but equal” doctrine, which adversely affected the lives of African-Americans socially, economically, and politically.
Sixty-five years later, in Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al., the Plessy decision was overturned. A unanimous verdict by the 1954 Court was read by Mr. Justice Warren:
… In the field of public education the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.
The Court mandated that school boards end school segregation “with all deliberate speed.”
At the time of that decision, African-Americans were classified as Negro.
The 1954 decision raised the hopes and aspirations of Negroes, but they knew the law had little meaning until it was implemented. Therefore, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) organized legal procedures to implement the Court’s decision.
In September of 1957, a plan to integrate nine Negroes into Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, reached its final stages. The plan incensed some of the citizens. The governor of the state, Orval Faubus, called in the state’s National Guard.
On September 4, an angry crowd gathered around the school to taunt the Guard and to thwart the plan. The purpose of the Guard was not clear until one of the nine students, Elizabeth Eckford, tried to enter the school. With bayonets fixed, the Guard denied her entrance. The crowd, seeing that the Guard was there to prevent integration, vented their anger on Elizabeth.
Elizabeth, unable to escape their abuse, sat on a bench at a bus stop near the school. The mob followed and drenched her with spit.
Grace Lorch braved the mob and sat beside Elizabeth. Mrs. Lorch was a nonsouthern white who taught with her husband, Lee, at Philander Smith College, an all-Black school in Little Rock. Subsequently, she shielded Elizabeth and helped her onto a city bus that went to the place where Elizabeth’s mother worked.
The issue of state authority versus federal authority had to be settled. President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized Arkansas’s Guard and then sent troops from the 101st Airborn Division into the city. Under the protection of the troops the nine Black students entered Central High School on Wednesday, September 25.
The Girl on the Outside is a fictional re-creation of that incident. The courage of Grace Lorch, of the nine Black students, and of Mrs. Daisy Bates, the NAACP official who helped implement the plan, inspired my story.
About the Author
Mildred Pitts Walter (b. 1922) grew up in Louisiana. She was the first member of her family to attend college, and then became a teacher and a civil rights activist. As a book reviewer for the Los Angeles Times, Walter noticed that there were few books about African Americans, especially for children, and decided to write them herself. She has written over twenty books for children, and has been heralded for her compelling portraits of African American family life. Walter was awarded the Coretta Scott King Award for Justin and the Best Biscuits in the World, and Because We Are and Trouble’s Child were Coretta Scott King Honor Books. She was inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame in 1996. Walter now lives in Denver.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1982 by Mildred Pitts Walter
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2787-8
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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The Girl on the Outside Page 11