A Mighty Long Way

by Carlotta Walls Lanier

  Near the end of the party, a Santa presented each of us with gifts and encouraging letters mailed from around the country by the organization’s members, who thanked us for our bravery and courage. I’ll never forget that evening. It came at a particularly low point and reminded us all that no matter how isolated we sometimes felt at Central, we were not in this fight alone.

  As 1957 wound to a close, I realized just how much of the world was watching us. I picked up the Gazette one day and saw a story that said the Associated Press had ranked the Little Rock Nine and our integration battle as the top story of the year in the nation—even bigger than the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the first major civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. According to the editors who compiled the list, our story was even bigger news than President Eisenhower’s stroke. Among world events, our story placed second, just behind the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik I and Sputnik II, the world’s first artificial satellites and the beginning of the space age. The same list also named Mrs. Bates “Woman of the Year” in education—recognition she shared with several other women, including Althea Gibson in sports, In-grid Bergman in entertainment, Lucille Ball in business, and Eleanor Roosevelt in public service.

  All too soon, the holidays were over and school was back in session. I had but one wish for the new year: that life at Central would somehow get easier. But it didn’t take long for that wish to fizzle. On the first day of school after Christmas break, classes were interrupted for what students had been told was a fire drill. It seemed strange when the police department showed up and began searching inside, but we later learned that a bomb threat had been made against the school. Such threats would become almost a routine part of our day. Sometimes the threatening calls came after school hours, and the National Guard was called back to duty, no matter what time, to check every inch of the campus.

  In late January, we returned to school after a few scheduled days off to yet another bomb scare. When the alarm sounded, the school was quickly evacuated, as usual. Once outside, when we saw the police, we could tell it was a bomb scare instead of a routine fire drill. That usually meant at least a half-hour wait out in the cold. I quickly learned to take my coat with me when we left the building. While standing outside, the white students rolled their eyes or cut mean looks at the black students, as if we were causing this inconvenience.

  This time, the search had not come up empty. Dynamite had been found in an unused locker. Superintendent Blossom told the newspaper that the dynamite could not have exploded, but authorities broke the stick into small pieces and disposed of it in the Arkansas River. Blossom maintained that the bomb threats were just a scare tactic intended to force school officials to close Central.

  The next day, another anonymous caller phoned in a threat—this time to the switchboard of the Arkansas Gazette. The operator described the caller as a “white boy who had muffled his voice.” Principal Matthews was summoned, and he called police and gathered some school administrators, who spent two hours searching the lockers again. Nothing turned up. A frustrated Blossom pleaded in the newspaper and on television for citizens to act responsibly and stop this disruption to the academic process. But his words fell on deaf ears because the threats, the searches, and the long waits in the cold continued. Parts of bombs were found in subsequent searches, but none that seemed to pose a real threat.

  However, the message from the segregationists was clear: They were not backing off. If anything, they felt even more emboldened by Minnie’s suspension. Minnie returned to school in mid-January, and the retaliatory attacks on her were relentless. One of the tormentors drenched her with hot soup. She didn’t respond that time, but the taunts continued daily. On the morning of February 6, Minnie had taken enough and retorted by calling a student “white trash,” which got her suspended again and ultimately expelled from Central for good.

  The same day, I was sitting in Mrs. Huckaby’s office when she came up from the cafeteria shortly after noon. She asked what happened, and I explained that I was on the stair landing, headed to the cafeteria, when two boys approached me and the smaller one kicked me. I pointed them out to the guard, who directed the boys to the office.

  In an incident report that Mrs. Huckaby filed, she detailed witnessing the same two boys and a group of girls suspiciously hanging around the cafeteria at a table next to where Jefferson, Elizabeth, and Melba were sitting that day. The white group had finished eating but just sat there, as if they were waiting for something.

  “I waited, too, having motioned for the Negro children not to leave,” Mrs. Huckaby wrote in the report. “Only when the Negroes rose at the bell did this group rise. I placed myself between the two groups, at the door made a slight delaying maneuver, and motioned for the guard to follow the Negro children.”

  The manner of the white group was “directly challenging to me,” Mrs. Huckaby wrote.

  Mrs. Bates somehow got a copy of a confidential school record dubbed “Students Involved in Repeated Incidents at Central High School,” which noted some of the harassment by well-known troublemakers. The report shows that 1958 was already off to a very rocky start:

  Herbert Blount (the same boy who had kicked me on the stairs) kicked and hit Terry, and threatened to beat him up after school.

  James Cole sacked Ernie in the shower with scalding hot towels and used abusive language; James also called Minnijean a “nigger-looking bitch” and refused to go to the principal’s office when the guard ordered him to do so.

  Darlene Holloway stepped on Melba’s heels and pushed Elizabeth down the stairs, for which Darlene was suspended. Lester Judkins pretended Ernie tripped him after Kenneth Van-diver struck Ernie.

  These were just a few of the incidents that made the list, and most times, I didn’t even bother reporting the name-calling and small indignities. My days were so stressful that I didn’t entirely feel bad for Minnijean now that she was expelled: At least she was free from the troubles at Central. Mrs. Bates and the NAACP arranged for her to move to New York and live with Drs. Kenneth and Mamie Clark, the renowned African American psychologists whose research using black and white dolls showed the devastating effects of racism and segregation on black children. The findings had been essential to the success of the Supreme Court’s Brown decision. Mamie Clark had grown up not far from Little Rock in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where she attended segregated schools. Her husband was the first African American to receive a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University in 1940, and she became the first African American woman to do so three years later. They lived in Hastings-on-Hudson, a New York City suburb nestled among the hills along the Hudson River, which sounded exotic and exciting. The couple helped Minnie attain a scholarship to the prestigious New Lincoln High School in New York.

  The remaining eight of us, our parents, and Mrs. Bates went to the airport to see Minnijean off. The closest I’d ever gotten to riding on a plane had been the fantasies I conjured up during my family’s occasional Sunday afternoon outings there to sit and watch the planes take off. Now, here was Minnie about to fly off into what seemed to me a much brighter future and a wonderful adventure. I felt more excited for her than sad. A link in our chain had been snapped off, but Minnie no longer had to carry the burden of Central. I put myself in her place and wondered what it would be like to fly far away from friends and family and live with famous strangers. The cold wind whistled as we stood near the tarmac, saying our good-byes. We waved and waved as Minnijean turned and walked away, her face reflecting what we all felt—excitement and regret. One of the guys broke into a verse of the Gene Allison hit “You Can Make It if You Try.”

  No sooner had Minnijean left Central than hateful cards began appearing all over the school: “One Down … Eight to Go.” Distributing the cards led to the suspension of one perennial troublemaker, Sammy Dean Parker. Another card was aimed at Gloria: “Get Gloria Ray—Out of the Way.” Even the principal, Jess Matthews, was a target: “That White Trash Matthews Named Jess / S
ure Got Central in a Mess / The kids—If They’re White / He Deprives of Their Rights / He’s a Kansas Nigger-Lover, I Guess.” I never saw a card bearing my name, but the segregationists were busy in their campaign to get rid of the rest of us, and sign or not, we all knew it.

  We knew, too, that the troublemakers were organized in their campaign to punish us physically. One of the cards found around school invited white students to attack us: “GOOD ONLY UNTIL MAY 29, 1958 / BEARER MAY KICK RUMPS OF EACH CHS NEGRO ONCE PER DAY UNTIL ABOVE EXPIRATION DATE / LAST CHANCE, BOYS. DO NOT USE SPIKED SHOES / SIGNED: DAISEY BLOSSOM.”

  School administrators regularly took similar cards away from students or yanked down the brazen signs scrawled on notebook paper and posted throughout the school. Practically everywhere I walked, I felt like one big bull’s-eye.

  That’s exactly how I felt at lunchtime on March 12 as I headed down the stairs from the third floor and suddenly felt a round blob of something wet smash against me. I had been hit by a tomato. From the second-floor landing, I quickly looked up and saw the guilty party, one of the black-leather boys with his light-colored hair combed toward his smirking face. I felt both furious and humiliated as I headed to Mrs. Huckaby’s office to change clothes. Tomato particles dripped from a huge stain on the right side of my skirt and blouse.

  There was, however, one place on campus where I could go without feeling that I was such a target: chapel. It was really just a large classroom, filled with desks and chairs, on the main level of the school. But for about twenty minutes each morning before classes began, the classroom became a place of meditation and prayer. The sponsor, Mr. Ivy, had invited the nine of us to join in, and I started each school day there. On any given morning, about thirty white students also attended. There was no interaction between the black and white students, but I knew that at least we had come there for a common purpose: to pray. Mr. Ivy usually asked the white students to lead the program, which generally included a Bible reading, prayer, and hymns—my favorite part of the service, especially the old standard “Amazing Grace.” I could often hear Melba’s—or, before she left, Minnijean’s—melodic voice rising above the crowd. This became my haven, the place where I found the spiritual fuel I needed to get through each day. I felt the presence of God there. In those moments, it never occurred to me to ask God, “Why so much pain?” When I thought about Jesus Christ and the profound suffering he endured, that made my own challenges seem small. I told myself that I could surely go on.

  One of the regulars in the service was Barbara Barnes, the most popular girl in the senior class and the homecoming queen. Though we never exchanged words, she always wore a pleasant smile. Many years later, as adults, Barbara and I both ended up in the Denver area, and Barbara contacted me. By then, we were both married with children, and we began meeting for lunch every couple of months to talk, get to know each other, and sort out the shared piece of our past. Her grandfather had been a religious man and a segregationist, she told me. He had wanted her parents to withdraw her from Central that year, but Barbara said she used the Bible to question his beliefs. What about loving your neighbor as yourself and doing unto others as you would have them do unto you? And what about the family’s black maid, who had cooked their meals, cleaned their home, and rocked their babies? Didn’t he claim to care about her? What if those nine black students were her grandchildren? Surely he wouldn’t mind his granddaughter going to school with them, Barbara prodded. Eventually, her grandfather relented. But the kids at school were another story. Barbara got just a taste of what the nine of us experienced daily as she walked to chapel one day with Ernie. A group of thugs approached and slammed her into the lockers; somehow Ernie got away. Barbara was left stunned, terrified, and angry. Imagine living with those feelings practically every minute of every day at school, I told her. She finally understood. Barbara has since passed away, but I’ve stayed in touch with her husband, Sterling.

  Sometimes I’ve thought about how much easier survival would have been if more people had taken a stand. As I saw it, the students at Central fell into different categories. The smallest group was the easiest to identify, those students who were determined to make our lives miserable: the tormentors, the black-leather boys, their female cohorts, and the other cowardly students who clung to their groups in their evil efforts to push us out. They were the ones who called us derisive names, spat on us, kicked, hit, pushed, and slammed us into lockers and down the stairs. Maybe it was their parents who helped to make up the segregationist crowds that clung to the wrongheaded belief that Central somehow belonged to them and that the nine of us were the interlopers causing trouble by having the audacity to keep showing up.

  The second group included those students who were clearly sympathetic, even if they did not outwardly show it or jump to our defense in times of trouble. You could tell by the kind eyes that on our worst days seemed to say: “I’m really sorry this is happening to you.” Sometimes they offered a shy smile in the hallways or in class or slipped a quiet note of support to one of us undercover. Gloria has talked fondly about Becky, a kind white girl with whom she exchanged notes during one of her classes. In their notes, Becky and Gloria established a sort of friendship, swapping tales about regular teenage stuff. On paper, they were just girls who shared the same interests, but the parameters of their relationship were clear. When Gloria wrote one day to ask whether she should speak if she saw Becky in the halls, Becky responded: “No, please don’t.” They both knew the consequences for Becky would be great. But Gloria has always felt grateful for those few moments in class when Becky helped her to feel accepted, as though she had at least one ally among her white classmates. The kindness of students like Becky sailed under the radar because to be detected was to draw harassment their own way, to be dubbed by the loudmouthed segregationists a “nigger-lover” and thus the enemy. In this battle, the segregationists forced everybody to choose sides. If you weren’t with them all the way in words and deeds, there was no middle ground. You were against them. Even administrators as methodical and “by the book” as Mrs. Huckaby, Mr. Powell, and Jess Matthews ended up on their hit list. The segregationists were taking names, and they were determined to make the lives of their enemies as miserable as they tried to make all nine of ours.

  The majority of students at Central fell into the third group: those who kept silent. They wanted all the “trouble” to end. They did not torment us, but they didn’t extend themselves to us in any way, either, not even quietly. They did not want to be associated with one side or the other. They chose to remain neutral, as if remaining neutral in the face of evil were an acceptable and just choice. They turned away. They rendered us invisible. They are most likely the ones today who, when asked about the Class of 1957, try to reinvent history. Things at Central weren’t as bad as the nine of us have said, they have recalled in recent years. The mobs weren’t as big, they say, the bad guys and gals weren’t as bad, and the atmosphere wasn’t as tense. Well, of course that is how they remember the Central journey these fifty-plus years later. When I was suffering in those hallowed halls, they turned away. They did nothing. They said nothing. They chose not to see.

  There was another group, a small group, for sure, but in my mind the bravest of all: those teachers and students who at times were openly kind, who seemed to look beyond skin color and see nine students eager to learn, eager to be part of a great academic institution. Mr. Bell, my biology teacher, was one of them. He was young, but he seemed worldly and wise. His mother taught me Spanish, but even her body language said she resented my presence at the school. Her son, however, had fought in the Korean War and had seen life far beyond Little Rock. He kept an eye on me in class and kept the troublemakers at bay. He didn’t single me out, but he called on me about as regularly as he called on my classmates. He even encouraged me to participate in the science fair. He chose to see me.

  There were others, too. The yearbook from my tenth-grade year includes kind notes from more than a dozen white cl
assmates who risked harassment for taking even that small step. My exchanges with some of them have disappeared from my memory, but their words will forever remind me that there were moments in the midst of chaos when black and white faded and we were just teenagers. Liz Dolan’s locker was a couple of doors down from mine, and we also were in the same gym class. Sometimes, as we stood at our lockers, the two of us swapped tales about our favorite show: American Bandstand. Liz was a dancer on the Little Rock version of the show, and as she hurriedly gathered her things in the evenings, she’d mention that she was rushing to get to the local television station. I’d wish her good luck and compliment her the next day on her dance moves. Robin Woods, a junior, was Terry’s friend first. Terry had come to class one day with no book, and as he sat there looking lost, Robin pulled her chair next to his and offered to share her book. She wrote in my yearbook:

  Dear Carlotta,

  This has been a memorable year for all of us—just wish you didn’t have so many unhappy ones. Remember I am for you. Good luck to a really great girl. …

  Then there was Jenny Lee Ball, a dark-haired girl who always wore her shoulder-length hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was on the student council, and we also shared gym, which usually involved some type of team activity—softball, basketball, or even gymnastics. For obvious reasons, the gym teacher set up the teams in the early part of the school year, which seemed to work fine. But eventually the teacher chose team captains, who got to select their own teams. Whenever Jenny was captain, she always chose me. Maybe the gym teacher had encouraged her to do so; Jenny was, after all, a student government representative. I’ll never know for sure. But my name wasn’t the first one Jenny called, and neither was it the last. And there wasn’t a hint of scorn or regret when she boldly called out my name. When our team got into the huddle to discuss our gymnastics formation—a pyramid that first day—Jenny included me in the discussion. What was I good at? Where should I fit? Was I strong enough to help hold down the bottom? I remember Jenny as befriending me, though I can’t think of a specific thing she said or did that was particularly special. But I guess that was the point. I saw nothing in her eyes and heard nothing in her tone that suggested she thought I was special or different. She just treated me with the same consideration and dignity she showed everybody else. That’s all I ever really wanted. That’s all every one of us wanted.