One Safe Place
I was three years old in 1957, when nine brave African American children volunteered to be the first African Americans to attend Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. They were Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Patillo, Carlotta Walls, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas, and Gloria Cecelia Ray. Today this statue of the nine stands on the grounds . . .
. . . of the Arkansas State Capitol.
Though reporters from around the world had covered the story of the integration of Little Rock Central High School in 1957, I was in my forties when I learned their story. I learned it from a heart-wrenching, made-for-television movie, called “The Ernest Green Story,” which Ray and I watched again and again with our children. The movie is called “The Ernest Green Story,” because, at the end of the 1957-58 school year, Green became the first African American to graduate from a formerly all-white high school in Little Rock.
The story sank deeply into the hearts of our children. In 2007, a couple of years before John, Bethany, and Mary Evelyn married (all within a 14-month span!), they went on a sibling vacation. One of their stops was the 50th Anniversary Commemoration at Little Rock Central High School. They were excited to be there at such an important milestone, especially since all of the “Little Rock Nine” were there.
During our first trip to the high school, we took a tour. It was heartbreaking to see scenes where the Little Rock Nine suffered from senseless racial prejudice from their classmates.
I am listening to a first-hand account by Carlotta Walls Lanier. She tells a story that I don’t remember ever hearing before even though I have researched their story and written a whole lesson about their experience in America the Beautiful, and Ray and I have visited the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site a couple of times.
I knew that Carlotta Walls Lanier was a woman of faith. Ray and I saw evidence of that on the grounds of the state capitol. Near the statues of Lanier and her eight black classmates are nine plaques, each with a quote from one of the Nine. This is Lanier’s plaque:
In the memoir, Lanier tells about one of the ways that her faith helped her during the horrible days she experienced in her first year at Central. There was one safe place where she could go for respite, one place where she knew she would have a break from being a target of harassment.
Each day a Mr. Ivy held a devotional in a large classroom at the high school. He invited each of the nine black students to attend the devotional, which also included around 30 white students. For 20 minutes each morning before classes began, Mr. Ivy and the students gathered for a common purpose. They read the Bible, prayed, and sang hymns. Lanier especially enjoyed when they sang “Amazing Grace.” This devotional gave Lanier the strength to make it through one more day at the school. She felt God’s presence in that place with those worshippers. She said that she never even thought about asking God why she was having to endure so much pain. The devotionals helped her think about Jesus Christ and the great suffering He endured. She said that His suffering made her challenges seem small. Thinking of Him made her believe that surely she could go on.
Whatever challenges we face today, this weekend, next week, this month, this year, in our entire lives, we can also think of Him and believe that we can surely go on. Our one safe place is only in Jesus.
Therefore, since we have a great high priest
who has passed through the heavens,
Jesus the Son of God,
let us hold fast our confession.
For we do not have a high priest
who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses,
but One who has been tempted in all things
as we are, yet without sin.Â
Therefore let us draw near with confidence
to the throne of grace,
so that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews 4:14-16