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A Mighty Long Way

Page 6

by Carlotta Walls Lanier


  CHAPTER 3

  Birth of a Tiger

  By the spring of 1957, my days at Dunbar were winding down. My ninth-grade year was almost over, and high school was just around the corner. The idea of going to the brand-new Horace Mann had grown on me. I looked forward to moving with my friends there. Just the idea of attending a school where everything was new—the building, the classrooms, the labs, the lockers—was exciting.

  Then one day before the end of the school year, I was sitting in my homeroom class when the teacher made an announcement: Central High School would be integrating in the fall. If our homes fell within certain border streets and we were interested in attending, we should sign the sheet of paper circulating around the room. Three years after the U.S. Supreme Court had ordered schools to integrate, it was really about to happen in Little Rock. But you wouldn’t have known that there was anything special about this moment. No one asked a question. No one offered a comment. No one passed notes or even whispered to one another. If there was any excitement, uncertainty, nervousness, or fear in the room, none of my peers or our teacher expressed it. The announcement was treated as just another administrative task.

  It caught my attention, though. My address put me in Central’s attendance zone, so I had a quick decision to make. My mind weighed the options. Central High, that grand building looming in the distance as I walked to school practically every day, now would open its doors to me. I’d heard so much about it. I knew I could get into Philander Smith or Arkansas AM&N, but I couldn’t help wondering how much wider my options for college would be if I attended Central and suddenly had all of its resources available to me. Plus, Central had competitive athletic teams, and it was just a mile from my home, much closer than Mann. My decision was made. When the sign-up sheet got to me, I eagerly wrote down my name. There were other names on the list, but it didn’t occur to me to note who they were.

  When I made it home from school that afternoon, I didn’t even mention my decision to my parents. It wasn’t a calculated choice to keep the news from them, but it just never came up. I know that sounds strange, but I’ve always been independent. I also tend not to make a big deal of things, even at times when something really is a big deal. In my mind, I had done what my parents would have expected. They had told me all of my life that a good education was paramount and that I should always strive for better. Central clearly seemed the better choice for me, so my decision didn’t stick out in my mind as one that needed much discussion. I must say, though, I was also just naive. I thought I had made a simple decision to go to a different school. I had no idea how much my life and the lives of those closest to me were about to change.

  As the school year ended, my thoughts were consumed with planning my summer. I knew the Brooklyn Dodgers would play the Cardinals and that my family would drive to St. Louis for the game. I wondered how many Arkansas Travelers minor league games I’d get to see and which Negro League teams would come to town. I knew we’d at least catch all of the big games on the radio. By then, Daddy also had bought our first television so that we could see some of the games, too.

  These were good financial times. Construction jobs were plentiful, and for several years Daddy had been earning enough money to splurge on a few luxuries, like the TV. He also was putting the finishing touches on a new wing he had added onto the back of the house. The renovation started at the old kitchen, which he widened and opened into a new den. A door from the den led into a large master bedroom with an entire wall divided into his and her closets. My parents needed the extra space for their expansive wardrobes. The room was spacious and bright, with lots of light streaming in from a pair of horizontal windows close to the ceiling. Among my favorite features of the room were its light oak hardwood floors, which I had helped Daddy lay.

  Daddy taught me lots of practical skills, including some tasks that fathers of my generation were more likely to teach their sons. I helped out when he mowed the yard and trimmed the bushes. He would even have me watch while he changed a tire on the car. Mrs. Fox, our neighbor, didn’t drive, so when Daddy drove her to the grocery store, he taught me how to shop. You don’t just pick up any jar of olives, he would say. Sometimes you want this brand or that one. Sometimes quality matters more than price. When he worked in Big Daddy’s café, I was his gofer, setting up tables and delivering orders to the cook. He taught me how to make chili-mac (homemade chili with macaroni or spaghetti added), one of the mainstays at the café. And when he worked the cash register, I sat on a high stool while he showed me again and again how to count money and give change to customers quickly. I was just thirteen when he first taught me to drive. He and I would hop into his truck and head to a deserted back road somewhere in town, then he’d hand over the wheel. Daddy was a patient and diligent teacher, always had been. I was barely past the toddler stage when he began waking me up at five a.m., before he went to work, to go over my ABCs and numbers. I’d roll my red wagon full of ABC blocks to him and dutifully recite my alphabet and numbers. The house would be as still as the dawn, with just Daddy and me puttering around. When it was time for him to go to work, he’d kiss me on the cheek and head with his metal lunch box out of the door. My teenage friends were crazy about Daddy, too, especially the guys, some of whom found it difficult to communicate with their own fathers, who tended to be more rigid and stern. Herbert, one of the regulars in our neighborhood softball games, once told me that he always enjoyed talking to my father. He said that Daddy was playful and down-to-earth, that Daddy really listened and never talked down to him.

  Daddy had a big soft spot in his heart for his daughters. Mother did, too. Nothing revealed that more than when the two of them decided during the summer to give their dream bedroom to me. They hadn’t even moved in yet when they surprised me with the news. Now that I was going to high school, they told me, I would need a quiet place to study. I could hardly believe my ears. For the first time in my life, I had a room of my own. I knew how much my parents wanted and needed a bigger bedroom, but they were willing to wait at least a few more years until I left for college. Their sacrifice and generosity spoke eloquently to me about what they considered important: My education meant far more to them than their own desire for comfort.

  When it came to taste and style, my parents were two of a kind. They didn’t have much, but whenever they pulled themselves together for a night on the town, they looked like a million bucks—Daddy in his Italian-designed hat, dress suit, and shoes and Mother in something flowing with glittery jewels around her neck. There was nothing pretentious or haughty about Mother. Daddy just loved spoiling her, and whatever Mother wanted from him, she generally got. He didn’t believe in buying things on credit, so he often worked two or three jobs at a time, whatever it took to provide for his family. His family was his pride. You could see it all over his face, especially when he stepped out with his glamorous wife on his arm.

  That sense of style extended to our home. As my parents made changes here and there, our house took on a more open, modern look, inspired—I’m almost certain—by Mother’s many magazines. She had subscriptions to the most popular ones of the day—Look, The Saturday Evening Post, Life, and, of course, Ebony and Sepia. The latter three were her favorites. Ebony and Sepia were general-interest publications, heavy with photos and uplifting stories, but they were black-owned publications that focused primarily on black success. They particularly showcased the glitz and glamour of the few black movie stars and entertainers of the time. Mother was a huge fan of crooner Billy Eckstine, and her black magazines kept her in close touch with the likes of him, Nat King Cole, and the Lena Hornes of the world. Mother had that kind of movie-star presence about her, too. One of her best friends, Tyralese, used to say Mother entered a room like Loretta Young. Young, a popular white actress, had her own television show back then, and when she entered the stage with a sweep of her flowing evening gown, Aunt Tyralese would say: “There goes Juanita.”

  Mother’s touch was noticeable everywhere that
summer as she finished the transformation of our house. Out went the plastic-covered sofas and chairs, and in rolled more contemporary replacements. I spent many evenings curled up in the cup-shaped white leather swivel chair in front of the television, a black-and-white model with the largest screen I’d ever seen. It was an RCA, and it sat on a fancy black swivel table in the new den. For the expanded kitchen, my parents added a bar with red-padded stools that each sat on a chrome base. When I plopped down many mornings on those bar stools with my piping hot grits and scrambled eggs, I felt as if I were in one of those California diners I’d seen on television.

  Sitting in front of the television had become one of my favorite pastimes. With no homework during summer, I could spend as much time as I wanted watching my favorite shows, Amos ’n Andy, I Love Lucy, and Esther Williams in her swimming movies. I especially loved Father Knows Best. After watching an episode one day, I turned to Mother and asked: “May I call Daddy ‘Father’?” She just laughed. She had long ago put an end to my calling her “Mama.” She said it drove her crazy the way I dragged out that four-letter word. “Mother” seemed more fitting, more elegant. But “Father” never stuck, never felt quite right. There was an earthiness, a closeness, a kind of warmth, to “Daddy.”

  Daddy was a prankster who kept us all laughing. But he was wise, too, and very much the traditional head of our household. The truth be told, my home life wasn’t much different from those of the white families I saw depicted on-screen every day in what became known as the golden age of television. I didn’t see families that looked like mine—happy black families—on TV, but we were a stable clan with two loving, doting parents. Daddy worked, Mother primarily took care of the family’s domestic needs, and we children got to be just children. I knew our lives weren’t as perfect as those we saw on TV, but whatever problems my parents may have had, they did their best to keep them from my sisters and me. Our home was peaceful, full of laughter, and often, full of extended family. Some of my favorite family times were spent in front of that black-and-white television, watching a broadcast of a Dodgers game. On those Saturdays, Mother, Daddy, and I would gather in the den with whatever relatives and friends had joined us, usually my uncles and their wives or girlfriends. I’d cook hamburgers, while my sister Loujuana, then eight, played with her dolls. All the while, the newest member of our family, my youngest sister, Tina, who was two at the time, ran from one family member’s lap to another.

  In previous summers, my love of baseball had extended to playtime. But for the first time since our neighborhood softball games began, the kids in my community didn’t meet on our playing field in the summer of 1957. All of us—black and white—had practically grown up together on that field. Some of us were finally headed to high school. I wondered if any of the white kids among us would be going with me to Central, too, but I never got to ask them.

  I couldn’t have imagined that we would never again come together on that field.

  Perhaps they were already feeling the tension. By then, community tensions over the school system’s plans to integrate Central had started bubbling to the surface, though I was still mostly oblivious to it. I kept busy with family, friends, and, of all things, potato chip sales. In June and July each summer, I sold bags of potato chips to raise money for Y-Teen camp, a two-week program sponsored by the local YWCA. And I must say, I was pretty good at it. I hiked through the neighborhood, knocking on doors with my chips in tow. I took the chips to church and, of course, to every family gathering until I made my sales commitment. Going to camp was a great sales motivator. I loved camp. It was two weeks of freedom with some really good friends. My best friend, Bunny, always joined me on the trip. Her real name is Dorothy Frazier, and we’ve been friends for as long as I can remember. Her grandmother lived just a block away from my house and across the street from White Memorial Methodist Church, which both of us attended. Bunny’s father had died in World War II when she was a baby, and she lived with her mother and stepfather, who was a doctor. I also enjoyed spending time at camp with another good friend, Jeannette Mazique, who lived about forty-five miles away in Pine Bluff. Jeannette and I had met through our fathers, who sometimes worked construction jobs together. Because we lived in different cities, we didn’t get to see each other regularly until camp. Bunny, Jeannette, and I rode the bus with the other Y-Teens to a camp in Clear Fork, Arkansas, just outside Hot Springs. I didn’t realize then that it was the only site in our area that admitted black campers. It was beautiful and serene, several acres of woods surrounding a sparkling lake. Rustic cabins sat nestled among the woods. We rose early most mornings to hike, explore the woods, compete against other cabins in games, and participate in arts and crafts projects, such as making key chains and lariats. At night, we enjoyed cooking out and singing around an open campfire. I could hardly wait. But camp was at the end of July, still a few weeks away.

  In the meantime, I spent many of my days at the Dunbar Community Center, a city-run recreational spot that had become a sort of gathering place for black Little Rock. It was a short bus ride from my house, and something fun was always happening there. In the evenings and on weekends, black fraternities, sororities, and other groups regularly held meetings and adult parties in the center’s huge hall on the main level. A smaller room upstairs drew families and church groups for afternoon receptions. But during the day, the center belonged to the city’s youths. It was always full of children and teens, playing games and cards while the latest sounds of rock and roll blared from the jukebox—Chuck Berry, Little Richard, the Platters, Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, you name it. Occasionally, some of the popular artists passing through Little Rock played daytime gigs at the center. One afternoon, I made my way there to see the duo Mickey & Sylvia perform their latest hit, “Love Is Strange.” I was headed in the door when I spotted Ernest Green, a friend and former Dunbar student. Ernie was two years older and about to enter his senior year at Horace Mann. His mother had been my first-grade teacher. The two of us greeted each other, chatted for a moment, and then he asked:

  “Are you going to Central?”

  “Yep,” I responded proudly.

  He told me that he had signed up, too, but that none of his friends wanted to leave Mann in their senior year. One of them, Lottie Holt—who would later become Lottie Shackelford, the first woman elected mayor of Little Rock—had just achieved her longtime goal of becoming editor of the Bearcat, the school newspaper. Ernie asked if I knew of anyone else who had signed up for Central, but I didn’t. My friend Peggy, who lived two blocks from me, had told me she had no interest in going to Central. She was having too much fun at the new Mann.

  Ernie looked concerned. “We need to contact a few people and see if they want to go with us,” he said.

  We agreed and headed into the center.

  “See you at Central,” I said.

  A few weeks later, I stepped outside my home to meet the postman, as usual, and was surprised to find a letter for me from the Little Rock school district. I read it quickly and ran inside to show Mother confirmation of my admittance to Central. She smiled approvingly and congratulated me. That’s the first time I remember any communication with her about my decision to go to Central. Even then, there was no big discussion, but I could tell she was happy for me. The card instructed me to show up at Central on a certain date in August to register for fall classes. Now, I was getting excited.

  But just two days into August, misfortune struck my family.

  I was standing on the porch that day when Mother stepped to the front door and called me inside. The distress on her face and her red eyes told me right away that something was wrong. Papa Holloway was gone, she said. Our patriarch—the man who had raised her, protected her, and kept the ground beneath her steady in those early days after her mother left—was dead. His oldest son’s wife, Aunt Helen, had found him unconscious, lying among the corn in his expansive garden. I heard Mother say something about him hemorrhaging. I’d never heard that word before. I hug
ged her as she wept inconsolably. My heart ached, too.

  Papa’s death dulled the excitement I had felt in the days before. But as relatives chatted in our home after the funeral on August 7, I heard Mother tell some out-of-town relatives:

  “You know, Carlotta will be going to Central in the fall.”

  There was pride in her voice, which lifted my spirits.

  However, when word got out that I was going to Central, not everyone in my family agreed with my decision. I couldn’t understand why Aunt Eva, the Dunbar librarian, didn’t seem particularly excited when I told her. That was unusual for her because she was such a high-spirited, fun-loving person. I’d learn through the family grapevine much later that she wanted my parents to withdraw me from Central and send me to Mann. She didn’t understand, I’d heard, why I needed to go to “that school.”

  Aunt Eva and all the other staff members at Dunbar were a proud bunch, and rightly so. They had given up their summers and holidays to add postgraduate degrees to their résumés. They had labored in a school system that still paid them less than a generally less educated white teacher. They had invested their skills and hearts in preparing black children for a world that would require them to be twice as good and work twice as hard. And they had produced stellar students, despite the discrepancies in resources. Those dedicated black educators knew where their loyalties lay. But they weren’t at all confident that their white colleagues at Central would be able to look past the skin color of black students, see and nurture the future doctors, lawyers, scientists, and entrepreneurs we could become. So while the Dunbar staff may have understood and supported the justice of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown, if they were a tad chilly to the practicality of it—their sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, being the first to go over to that school—they believed they had good reason. Nothing was ever quite so black and white.

 

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