This time as we moved forward I was frightened because classes had not yet begun and students hovered all around us. About three hundred refused to clear a path to the front door. As they stood their ground, it was obvious that they must be part of a planned protest against us. Finally, when the soldiers bristled, they moved away. But as we climbed to the top of the middle staircase, a boy cried out “Boooooooo,” holding the sound for longer than I thought humanly possible. He sounded the way a crowd does when visiting players beat the home team. Enthusiastic applause and laughter followed. I felt embarrassed and very unwelcome.
I glanced back over my shoulder to see whether any of the mob was left across the street and whether any of those persistent reporters were standing by. Sure enough, both groups were manning their posts. We could hear the muffled voices chanting in the distance: “Two, four, six, eight. We ain’t gonna integrate.”
“Four, six, eight, ten, we’re already in,” Terry whispered.
Danny was waiting for me near the front door. We nodded to each other as I began the long trip up to my homeroom. The early-morning hecklers were full of energy. One girl walked up close behind me, getting between Danny and me. I didn’t look back; instead I quickened my pace. She started walking on my heels, and when I turned to face her, she spit at me. I ducked and scampered out of her way. To keep my focus, I began saying the Lord’s Prayer. I continued to whisper the words under my breath as I approached the door to my homeroom at the top of the third-floor stairs.
“Hey, Melba, pay attention to what you’re doing. Watch out!” Danny shouted as a group of boys bumped straight into me.
One of them kicked me in the shins so hard I fell to the floor. A second kick was delivered to my stomach. Danny stood over me, motioning them to move away. Other soldiers made their presence known, although they kept their distance. I struggled to my feet. More white students gathered around and taunted me, applauding and cheering: “The nigger’s down.”
“Stand tall,” Danny whispered. “Let’s move out.”
“Why didn’t you do something?” I asked him.
“I’m here for one thing,” he said impatiently. “To keep you alive. I’m not allowed to get into verbal or physical battles with these students.”
As some of the students continued their catcalls, I fought back tears and headed down the stairs to the principal’s office.
“Did any adult witness this incident?” the woman clerk behind the desk asked in an unsympathetic tone. “I mean, did any teacher see these people do what you said?”
“Yes, ma’am, the soldiers.”
“They don’t count. Besides, they can’t identify the people you’re accusing.”
“No. I didn’t see any adults other than the soldiers,” I answered, feeling the pain in my shin and my stomach.
“Well, in order to do anything, we need an adult witness.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Those were the words my mouth said because that’s what I had been told was appropriate to say. But another part of me wanted to shout at her and ask why she didn’t believe me or care enough to ask whether or not I needed medical help.
“I think you’d better get to class, unless you want us to call an ambulance,” she said in a sarcastic tone.
I turned to walk out the door. It had hurt my feelings as much to report the incident to her as to live through it. I could see Danny’s face, his expression was blank. But his posture was so erect and his stance so commanding that no one would dare to challenge him. Seeing that made me think about my own posture. I had to appear confident and alert. I squared my shoulders, trying not to show how frightened and timid I really felt. I told myself I had to be like a soldier in battle. I couldn’t imagine a 101st trooper crying or moping when he got hurt.
As I approached my homeroom class, I could hear the students yelling football cheers. Their loud voices, the pounding, their enthusiasm frightened me. It could so easily be a cover for whatever they wanted to do to me. I didn’t know any of the cheers. There was no one to teach me. All around me they were laughing and talking of things I had no part in. I felt invisible, excluded, and once again as though there were no space for me.
For a while I sat perfectly still in the middle of all the fuss, and then, feeling awkward, I decided to try and join in. I clapped my hands and swayed back and forth to the rhythm, even though what was their fun was my terror. I felt a haunting aloneness; I yearned for someone, anyone, to say a friendly word to me. I kept a smile on my face and my posture erect. Afterward, I realized that the prospect of their attacking me had coiled my stomach into knots. Ideas in my mind were frightening me—rather than any reality. I would have to take control of my mind as Grandma said Gandhi had done.
I made my way to my next class, where Danny stood patiently outside the glass peephole in the door, watching boys throw pencils at me. Every time the teacher looked the other way, I was the target of yet another airborne object. But I was trapped. If I raised my hand to report their behavior, I might have to endure even worse treatment. The teacher wouldn’t do anything to protect me. I already knew that. So I decided the best plan was simply to ignore them. If they got no satisfaction from their activities, perhaps they would stop. Partway through the class they stopped throwing things at me, but they didn’t stop hurling whispered insults.
During the rest of the day, I forced myself to endure annoying little pranks that distracted me and made me nervous but did not really hurt me. After the ride home in the convoy with a fun game of verbal Ping-Pong with my friends, the usual group of news reporters once again greeted us at Mrs. Bates’s house. That night I wrote in my diary:
It’s hard being with Little Rock white people. I don’t know if I can do this integration thing forever. It feels like this is something people do for only a little while. I want to run away now. I want a happy day.
The next morning, after a full night’s sleep, I felt fresh and new, and the ride with Sarge and the others was a real tonic to start my day.
“Smile, it’s Friday,” Danny said, greeting me at the front door of the school. I was in an almost chipper mood as I walked up the stairs to my homeroom, even though I knew I had to be extra careful because of that morning’s Gazette headline:
GOVERNOR CALLS FOR CALM, ORDER—
BUT VOICES RESENTMENT OF OCCUPATION
Grandma had told me the governor had given a speech the night before in which he talked at length about his anger that Little Rock was “an occupied city.” He also talked of people being injured by soldiers’ bayonets. But worst of all he showed a photograph of two Central High School girls being hustled along by soldiers with bayonets extended at their backs. A caller from the NAACP said to expect trouble because Faubus’s speech was inflammatory.
There had been fewer soldiers accompanying us up the front stairs. Their absence meant the defiant chants and hateful words grew much louder. When I stepped inside the school, the soldiers were not as visible as they had been the day before, but I thanked God that they were still there.
“I’m gonna be in the background today. They’re trying to figure how you’all will get along without us being up real close,” Danny said.
I nodded to him as though I felt okay with his announcement. I wanted to say, “Please, please don’t leave my side,” but I didn’t. I felt myself beginning to rely on him, but I didn’t know what else to do. I had never before felt such fear. It was an unfamiliar position—me, counting on a white man to defend me against other white people determined to hurt me. And yet I was resigning myself to the fact that, for the moment, I had no choice but to depend on Danny, and God.
As I drew near the classroom, I was very apprehensive because this time I was entering my homeroom before class officially got under way. Everybody would be free to laugh and taunt or even hurt me. But I had no place else to go.
One girl with short red hair, freckles, and a pixie smile was being especially attentive. She invited me to accompany her to the window that overlooked the sch
ool yard. I was suspicious of her kindness, but I wanted to believe someone was having a change of heart. As I stood beside her chatting about the bright day and the activity of soldiers on the grounds beneath us, I felt a twinge of joy. Maybe I wasn’t batting my head against a stone wall after all.
“Stand right here. We’re gonna salute the flag now,” she said. I raised my hand to my chest and smiled as the flag was hoisted up in front of the classroom.
“Aren’t you gonna take my picture saluting the American flag with this famous nigger,” she suddenly shouted to a boy who was focusing his camera. “Snap it, you idiot . . . now! I wanna get into Life magazine like the niggers are.”
My heart sank. What should I do? Everyone was looking at me. The teacher arrived, and chiding the girl briefly, she halted the flag salute and instructed the class to maintain reverence for the flag. I turned away from the girl to walk to the opposite side of the room, and that’s when I felt a stabbing blow that pierced my blouse and my skin. I lunged forward to escape the thrust, for a moment stunned by the pain. When I turned around, I saw the red-haired girl was holding a slender wrought-iron flagpole about twice as long as a chopstick with a very sharp point on one end. A Confederate flag was attached to it. I had seen other students carrying those flags in school and letting out the rebel yell. Now it had become her weapon.
The teacher either didn’t see, or pretended she didn’t. She resumed the salute to the flag. The puncture wound throbbed, and I could feel the blood trickling down my back as I held my hand over my heart and wondered whether I should go for first aid, tell the teacher, or stay in class. I decided I wouldn’t rush to report what had happened. I wouldn’t give my classmates the satisfaction of knowing how much pain they had inflicted on me. And I wasn’t sure any of the adults would do anything to tend my wound in any case, so I took my seat. I thought class would never end; the hands of the clock seemed frozen. When the break finally came, I raced for the bathroom to tend my wound while Danny trailed behind me asking questions about the blood on the back of my blouse.
AS with any high school on Friday, the anticipation of the weekend brought excitement, and this was a special Friday for Central High’s student body. The occasion for all the hoopla was a big football game that night with Baton Rouge, their archrival. People had been lingering about the stairwells, cheering, and waving pom-poms, making those areas particularly hazardous for the nine of us.
The stairwells were huge, open caverns that spiraled upward for several floors, providing ample opportunity to hurl flying objects, dump liquids, or entrap us in dark corners. As I descended the stairwell, it dawned on me that except for Danny, I was almost alone. There should have been many more people around because it was a class break.
“Look out, Melba, now!” Danny’s voice was so loud that I flinched. “Get down!” he shouted again as what appeared to be a flaming stick of dynamite whizzed past and landed on the stair just below me. Danny pushed me aside as he stamped out the flame and grabbed it up. At breakneck speed he dashed down the stairs and handed the stick to another soldier, who sped away. Stunned by what I had seen, I backed into the shadow on the landing, too shocked to move.
“You don’t have time to stop. Move out, girl.” Danny’s voice sounded cold and uncaring. I supposed that’s what it meant to be a soldier—to survive.
AFTER gym class, Danny met me in the hall with some unfortunate news. “You’re going to your first pep rally,” he said, concern on his face.
Going to a pep rally was rather like being thrown in with the lions to see how long we could survive. A pep rally meant two thousand students in a huge room with endless opportunity to mistreat us. As I climbed the stairs, I longed to sprint to the front door and escape.
“They won’t allow me to go in with you,” Danny whispered. “But I’ll be somewhere outside here.”
I didn’t respond; I was too preoccupied with finding a safe route into the rally. Nothing had frightened me more than suddenly being folded into the flow of that crowd of white students as they moved toward the auditorium. Maybe it was because they were all so excited that I got in and to my seat without much hassle. Once settled, I was delighted that Thelma was sitting only a few feet away. Nevertheless, I couldn’t relax because I was crammed into that dimly lit room among my enemies, and I knew I had to keep watch every moment. I ignored the activity on stage in favor of keeping my guard up.
Over the next twenty minutes, I worked myself into a frenzy anticipating what might happen. My stomach was in knots and my shoulder muscles like concrete. I decided I had to settle myself down. I repeated the Twenty-Third Psalm. All at once, everybody was standing and singing the school song, “Hail to the Old Gold, Hail to the Black.” Some students were snickering and pointing at me as they sang the word “black,” but I didn’t care. It was over, and I was alive and well and moving out of the auditorium.
Suddenly, I was being shoved backward, toward the corner, very hard. A strong hand knocked my books and papers to the floor as three or four football-player types squeezed me into a dark corner beneath the overhang of the auditorium balcony. One of them hurt the wound on my back as he pinned me against the wall. Someone’s forearm pressed hard against my throat, choking me. I couldn’t speak. I could hardly breathe.
“We’re gonna make your life hell, nigger. You’all are gonna go screaming out of here, taking those nigger-loving soldiers with you.”
Just as suddenly as I had been pinned against the wall, I was released. I stood still for a moment, holding on to my throat, gasping, trying to catch a good breath. I stooped to pick up my things, careful to keep a watch around me. I stumbled back into the flow of the crowd. I couldn’t stop coughing, and my throat felt as though I would never speak again. In the distance I saw Danny standing in the hallway, facing the door of the auditorium.
“What’s the matter?”
“Some guy tried to choke me,” I whispered in a raspy voice.
“And you did nothing?”
“What could I do?” Talking hurt my throat.
“You’ve gotta learn to defend yourself. You kids should have been given some training in self-defense.”
“Too late, now,” I said.
“It’s never too late. It takes a warrior to fight a battle and survive. This here is a battle if I’ve ever seen one.”
I thought about what Danny had said as we walked to the principal’s office to prepare to leave school. I knew for certain something would have to change if I were going to stay in that school. Either the students would have to change the way they behaved, or I would have to devise a better plan to protect myself. My body was wearing out real fast.
Later that evening, after Grandma tended my back and put a warm towel on my throat, I fell into bed, exhausted. In my diary I wrote:
After three full days inside Central, I know that integration is a much bigger word than I thought.
15
SINCE it was the end of my first exhausting week at Central High, I decided to claim Saturday for my very own. That’s why I set my alarm clock for 4 A.M. I wanted a slice of the fresh, still morning all to myself. What I liked most was the absolute silence inside my head and heart—silence I had not enjoyed for so long. Most of all, I wanted to be alone so I could search for the part of my life that existed before integration, the Melba I was struggling to hold on to.
I had also promised myself that I wasn’t going to turn on the news, read the newspaper, talk, read, or write about integration. I would listen to records, read my Seventeen and Ebony magazines, and write in my diary. I thought I’d never again be sitting on my bed, nestled between my huge white lace pillows and my stuffed animals, just like a normal girl. I was trying hard not to face the notion growing inside me that I was no longer normal, no longer like my other friends.
Nothing in my life was the same anymore. I felt so empty inside, like somebody had scooped out the warm sweet part of my spirit that made me smile and feel grateful to be alive. Integration hadn�
�t at all worked out the way I’d planned. I didn’t know it would eat up so much of my time—and so much of my life.
The changes crept over me, taking a little of my old life away each day. In the time since I’d decided to go to Central, my best friend, Marsha, had stopped the daily calls we had made to each other for so long. Each day I had meant to call her and ask why, but I was so busy thinking about integration—and even when I remembered, I didn’t have time. On those now rare occasions when I called her, she spent much of the conversation telling me how her friends and family members were suffering because of me. I spent the rest of the time defending myself, explaining how in the long run it would all be worth it. We never talked about boys or movies or Johnny Mathis or new clothes anymore.
Warriors Don't Cry Page 17
