The Little Rock Nine, Part 1
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.
Though reporters from around the world had covered the story of the integration of Little Rock Central High School in 1957, it was old news by the time I was old enough to understand it. 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. All are still living today, except Jefferson Thomas who died in 2010.
On our way to the Texas Home School Coalition convention, Ray and I spent the night in Little Rock on Tuesday night for the express purpose of visiting the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site and the Arkansas State Capitol, which stands a few blocks away.
Ray had called ahead to schedule us for one of the two daily tours. We were a little disappointed when we learned that we would be joining a large group of school children for the tour at 9:00 a.m., but our worries were unfounded. They were a well-behaved group and being with this racially-diverse group of children in their red, white, and blue school uniforms made the tour more poignant.
Our tour guide led us first to the intersection of Park Street and Daisy L. Gatson Bates Drive. On its four corners are the visitors center; a filling station; the beautiful and massive Little Rock Central High School, which is still an active public high school; and a small park honoring all who have graduated from the school. We walked to the front of the filling station, which is no longer open, but is a part of the historic site. Our guide told us that here on the Tuesday after Labor Day in 1957 were 150 reporters from around the country and around the world — including London, Tokyo, and Norway — waiting to report on this historic event when African American students were to integrate Central High.
Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus had informed Arkansans the day before on television that one thousand protesters were on their way to Little Rock. On that September 4, which was the first scheduled day of school, there were in fact only about 150 protesters. Faubus had ordered 100 National Guardsmen to surround the school, ostensibly to keep order. The father of our guide was one of those National Guardsmen. The “Little Rock Nine” were ordered to stay home that day for their safety.
The Little Rock Nine had prepared well for their first day of school. The Little Rock school board had hand-picked them from among the 80 African American students who had expressed interest in attending the all-white Central High. They had been trained in non-violence. They had been told that they would have to follow the example of Jackie Robinson, who remained calm in the face of the abuse he suffered when he began playing major league baseball. They had been coached by Daisy L. Gatson Bates, who was president of the Arkansas NAACP.
They had to wait another anxious day before their first day of classes, and you will have to wait another day to hear more of my story.
 The God who made the world and all things in it,
since He is Lord of heaven and earth,
does not dwell in temples made with hands;
nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything,
since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;
and He made from one man every nation of mankind
to live on all the face of the earth,
having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,
Acts 17:24-27
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