Soon after returning to Little Rock, the nine of us were off again with Mrs. Bates to New York for a whirlwind week, sponsored and hosted by the AFL-CIO Hotel Employees Union #6. Our host, James Marley, and his assistant, Betty Bentz, escorted us around the city, delivering us where we needed to be and making sure we were suitably dressed and on time for our appointments. We were even accompanied by the union’s photographer, Mildred Grossman, a tiny lady who didn’t seem at all weighed down by the ton of photo equipment she lugged around. She seemed different from the other professional photographers we had encountered. She tried not to be intrusive, though she snapped photos at every turn. In later years, when I learned her history, I would understand why she seemed so empathetic toward us. She knew what it was like to be singled out unjustly. She had been among thirty-three New York schoolteachers fired from their jobs for refusing to sign a loyalty oath, disavowing membership in the Communist Party during the McCarthy era. She became a union photographer and traveled the country, capturing some exclusive inside shots of their workers, their campaigns, and their leaders, networking with some of the nation’s most renowned political and social figures. She ultimately won a lawsuit against the New York school system and was ordered reinstated to her teaching job. She returned for one day and retired. I had no clue when I met her that summer just how brave and honorable she was, but she earned my respect with her ability to keep up with nine giddy, adventurous teenagers.
First stop in New York was the office of Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP, one of the early civil rights leaders I’d learned about at Dunbar. In his presence, I was a starstruck fifteen-year-old, watching a storybook figure suddenly acquire flesh and bones. Later, we met New York mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr. We had lunch with the secretary-general of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld, and 1950 Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche. Another day, we had Coke and cookies with Governor Adlai Stevenson at the Waldorf-Astoria, where he lived. We attended a fund-raiser at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. had been the pastor. His son Adam, Jr., then a prominent congressman, was with us there, along with Thurgood Marshall. They were a charming pair. When it was time to plead for financial support for the NAACP from the audience, Mr. Marshall joked:
“Now, folks, let’s put in dollars. The sound of change hitting the plates makes these kids nervous.”
Later the same day, we visited Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn. During dinner, Melba got a chicken bone stuck in her throat and was unable to talk to the congregation as planned. But honestly, by then most of us were a bit tired of being paraded around. I remember thinking I would have gladly taken that chicken bone to avoid being called on to talk.
One of the most memorable evenings in New York was hosted by Drs. Kenneth and Mamie Clark, the psychologists who had taken in Minnijean when she was expelled from Central. They had a lovely home at Hastings-on-Hudson, and Broadway stars Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee were waiting to meet us there. What a nurturing, down-to-earth couple the actors were. They had children our age and related to us very much as protective parents, inquiring about our well-being. Later, we went to see David Merrick’s new Broadway play, Jamaica, starring Lena Horne and Ricardo Montalban. Horne’s role as the sassy Savannah would earn her a Tony nomination. Ossie Davis also starred in the production, and he arranged for us to meet the other actors backstage after the show. I loved Lena Horne. She was warm and engaging, not to mention stunning. I knew little then about her politics—how she had refused to perform for segregated audiences during World War II, how her friendship with outspoken activist and actor Paul Robeson had left her branded a Communist and blacklisted in Hollywood in the 1950s, how she again and again aligned herself with civil rights causes. But the more I learned about Lena Horne in the ensuing years, the more I admired her. After the show that night, I just knew that I felt a connection to her, perhaps because she reminded me so much of my mother. The way Ms. Horne carried herself—the way she threw her shawl around her shoulders with the grace of an onstage performance—that sure enough was Mother.
I could tell that Ms. Horne and Mrs. Bates connected, too. They were two of a kind, both elegant and ladylike, yet feisty and committed to racial justice.
After meeting with the performers, the nine of us students and our adult chaperones ended the evening at Lindy’s restaurant, home of the “World Famous Cheesecake,” in Times Square. Owned by Leo “Lindy” Lindermann and his wife, Clara, the restaurant was a popular hangout for Broadway and vaudeville stars. There, like everywhere we went, the staff catered to us as though we were stars, too. It astounded me that day after day we met internationally renowned entertainers and politicians, yet they treated us as if we were the celebrities. It felt unreal and at times, for me, a bit uncomfortable.
The photographer, Ms. Grossman, tried to capture it all. She accompanied us everywhere. On Coney Island, when we got on the roller coaster, she hopped on, too, right in the front seat, and she turned to snap photos of us as our cars raced up, down, and around the tracks. She also caught a picture of me on the ferry, leaning over the deck of the boat at the Statue of Liberty. That shot made the cover of the Voice, the magazine of the local union that sponsored our trip. The symbolism was striking: a fifteen-year-old member of the Little Rock Nine stretching for a clear view of the Statue of Liberty, the great promise of America’s democracy.
And then our glorious week was done.
I didn’t head back to Little Rock just yet, though. Gloria and I were going to separate summer camps in the New York area. Mrs. Bates had received invitations from several organizations for us to participate in summer camps, and she did her best to match our interests. Thanks to a generous sponsor, I was set to spend a month at Camp Minisink, a wooded campsite in the Shawangunk Mountains near Port Jervis, New York. The New York City Mission Society ran the camp, which offered youths, mostly from Harlem, the chance to experience the outdoors and nature far away from the concrete city. The Mission Society operated a year-round community center in Harlem; it was to Harlem what the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA was to Little Rock, a trusted community institution with an endless roster of fun programs aimed at developing young potential.
Camp Minisink was similar to the Y-Teen sessions I’d attended at Camp Clearfork in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas, but on a grander scale. Everything, it seemed, was larger—the lake, which flowed as far as the eye could see, and the woods, which spanned more than six hundred acres. But there had been a kind of sameness at Camp Clearfork; all of the campers were primarily colored teenage girls growing up in and around Little Rock. At Minisink, we were a mix of boys and girls, middle-class and poor, Hispanic and Negro. Our days and evenings were spent doing typical outdoor camp activities—hiking, boating, playing games, competing, cooking, cleaning, and singing around the campfire. We took turns bussing our meal tables and swapping pieces of our dialects and culture. My friends used to laugh at how I said “water.” I guess I subconsciously threw in an extra “r,” as in “warter.” And my new northern buddies just found that hilarious. I, of course, had no idea what was so funny because I’ve never had much of a southern accent—at least, I’ve never thought so. But I had my share of fun, too, with their dialects from Puerto Rico, the West Indian islands, and those other worlds within the U.S. borders—Miami and the Bronx.
For the first time, I was learning about foods I’d never tasted, trying out dances I’d never seen, and hearing stories about how other kids lived. Finally, my soul and spirit could rest. The other campers all knew my story, and some were naturally curious. But they didn’t pester me with questions about Central. I was just one of them.
Program director Gladys V. Thorne, whom we affectionately called Thorny, kept us in line. She was a little dynamo: short, no more than four feet six inches tall, round, and in constant motion. She wore her long black hair pulled back into a bun, and she was the spitting image of actress Juanita Hall, a black woman who played a Pacific Islander and sang “Bali
Ha’i” in the Rodgers and Hammerstein film South Pacific. The movie was out in theaters that year, and Thorne joked about the special treatment and double takes she got from moviegoers certain she was the star. Thorne was fun. She felt comfortable hanging out with us teenagers, but she stressed discipline and commitment and ran a tight ship. I’ve always liked that in people.
After the first two weeks of camp, there was a break of several days before the next session started again. Since I couldn’t return to Little Rock, I went home to Harlem with another fifteen-year-old camper, Paula Kelly, who became a fast friend. Her family lived in a two-bedroom flat in a vibrant Harlem community. We walked the neighborhood, shopped—or, rather, browsed in neighborhood stores—and sat outside on scorching days to watch children play in the open fire hydrants. Then we returned to Camp Minisink for another two weeks.
Paula, who attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, was just the kind of student the Mission Society brought into its fold early. She was versatile and supertalented; she could sing, dance, and act. She was the leader of my group when the campers broke up by age at the end of each day and performed a dance routine or skit.
Paula eventually would earn a master’s degree in dance from the Juilliard School and become an Emmy-nominated dancer and actress. I’ve always been so proud to know her. She has perfomed and danced alongside some of the best in the business, including the late Sammy Davis, Jr., Gregory Hines, and Gene Kelly. But she could light up a stage all by herself, as she did at the Academy Awards in 1969 when she danced a solo to “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” which had been nominated for “Best Original Song.” One of her many memorable television roles was that of a lesbian confronting homophobia in The Women of Brewster Place, produced in 1989 by Oprah Winfrey.
Soon it was time to say good-bye to Paula and my Minisink friends. The New York couple who had sponsored my camp scholarship came to meet me at the end of the third week. They watched a final production of a play the campers performed and presented me with a silver lapel pin. I thanked them for their generosity, but at fifteen, I’m sure I couldn’t adequately express what a balm Camp Minisink had been for my bruised psyche. I hope they knew.
At the end of the second two-week session, the Mission Society sponsored a social for all of the students who had been at camp that summer. I got to see friends who had not returned after the first two weeks. This time we were not in camp clothes, but dressed up. And we got to display on the dance floor all the new moves we had bragged about and occasionally demonstrated on those sweaty days in the woods.
I left Camp Minisink knowing that I had made some lifelong friends.
There was just one more stop for me before I returned to Little Rock. My eight Little Rock comrades and I had been invited to Washington, D.C., to attend the Elks convention. The nation’s capital reminded me of a southern city. After those wonderful weeks in New York, a city that was a true melting pot, Washington felt more like being back in Little Rock. In the stores, on the streets, in the hotel, we were segregated. People of different races lived separately. This was shocking to me. I hadn’t expected it in the nation’s capital.
We were guests on a local television station’s version of American Bandstand and got to meet a singer we all adored. He was quite handsome and charming. But as we were headed back to the hotel in a cab one afternoon, some of us witnessed an odd and somewhat startling sight: police chasing the frazzled-looking entertainer and another man out of a local park. The summer had seasoned me a bit, so what may have appeared puzzling to the more naive seemed obvious to me then. I felt worldly as I explained quietly to those sitting next to me that it appeared our idol must have gotten caught in some kind of romantic rendezvous—this at a time when no one talked openly about sex, let alone same-sex relationships.
The next day, the nine of us were scheduled to be in a parade—a long, big one with a specially designed float just for us. We arrived late, missed the departure of the float, and had to drive a short distance to catch up to it. The float featured individual desks with each of our names, and it was so high that we had to be hoisted onto it. The next thing I remember is crowds of people waving to us. We smiled big for the cameras and waved back. Melba and Minnie especially loved the parade. I hated it. I felt embarrassed—embarrassed that we were such spectacles, embarrassed that we had arrived late, embarrassed by the largesse of it all. I wasn’t ungrateful, though. I knew the Elks meant well by honoring us in a big way. At a banquet later that night, the group’s leaders even presented each of us with a $1,000 scholarship. It was a truly generous gift that helped to relieve our worries about how we would pay for college, and I was thrilled to get it. But I guess after a month of fun as just another teenager at camp, I wasn’t eager to return to the spotlight associated with Central High School.
Our group had been late for the parade because beforehand we had met with Thurgood Marshall for a photo session, which ran longer than expected. Six of us posed for pictures with him on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court. In one iconic snapshot, Mrs. Bates is on one side of him and I am on the other. My comrades are sitting on descending steps—Gloria, Jeff, and Melba on one side; Minnie and Elizabeth on the other. Of all the stars I met that summer, Mr. Marshall was still my favorite. He was my personal hero, and every time I saw him, I just felt honored to be in his presence.
The time in Washington marked the end of summer break, which had felt like a little slice of heaven. Now it was time to head back to Little Rock and Central. All the way home, I was filled with dread. I knew what awaited me there.
I was returning to hell.
CHAPTER 8
Just a Matter of Time
My junior year at Central hadn’t even started yet when the legal fight over integration began anew. The school board, persuaded that its initial efforts to integrate Central had been a dismal failure, returned to court over the summer to seek permission to change course. While the nine of us were being hailed as heroes throughout the country, the board began its push to return us to the all-black Horace Mann and delay integration until January 1961. There were new threats of violence, the board told the court, and the citizens of Little Rock needed more time to adjust to the inevitability of integration.
By then, the heroic Judge Davies had returned to North Dakota, and the case was assigned to an Arkansas-based federal judge. I wasn’t in court for the hearing, but I was stunned to learn on June 21 that U.S. District Judge Harry Lemley granted the board’s request for a delay. I wondered whether the clock would start ticking backward. Until that moment, the segregationists had been losing. The NAACP appealed immediately.
When the case went before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis in August, Thurgood Marshall returned with Wiley Branton to represent us. I was still away at camp, but it was a relief to hear that Marshall won the day. The appellate court reversed the Lemley ruling. The school board wasn’t ready to give in, though, and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. When the new school year rolled around on September 2, 1958—the Tuesday after Labor Day—the city’s four high schools remained closed. Once again, I was sitting at home in limbo, waiting for the nation’s highest court to rule on the future of integration in Little Rock.
Ten days later, the Supreme Court spoke. It took Chief Justice Earl Warren just four minutes to read the decision ordering the Little Rock school district to proceed with integration. But Faubus was ready to counteract. He was even cockier than usual after having just won the Democratic nomination for his third term. In Arkansas, that was tantamount to reelection, and Faubus was about to become the first governor in fifty years to serve more than two terms. The power seemed to intoxicate him. By the time the Supreme Court issued its order, Faubus had already called a special session of the state legislature and pushed through six anti-integration bills, which gave him extraordinary powers over the school system. Just hours after the Supreme Court announcement, Faubus made his stunning move: He signed the anti-integrati
on bills into law and utilized his new power to shut down all three public high schools in Little Rock. And just like that, thirty-seven hundred students, black and white, were left wondering: What now?
The news infuriated me. How dared the state’s highest-ranking public official jeopardize the futures of thousands of students? How was I going to complete my junior year now? Ernie had left for Michigan State, Minnijean was back in New York, and the parents of two of my other comrades had decided already that their families would take no more. They had already walked through hell and had no intention of looking back. Terry had moved to Los Angeles in August to stay with his paternal grandmother and other relatives. His parents and younger siblings would leave Little Rock for good and join him there by the end of the year. Gloria and her mother relocated around the same time to Kansas City, while her father maintained the family home in Little Rock. That left Jefferson, Elizabeth, Thelma, Melba, and me. Mrs. Bates did her best to try to reassure us and our parents while we waited. I can still see the urgency on her face as she explained that we could take correspondence courses through the University of Arkansas. In the meantime, she promised, the NAACP would continue to fight for us.
My own feelings were mixed, just as they had been when Minnijean first left for New York. I regretted that those of us who had been through so much together at Central wouldn’t be able to finish our journey together. But I was happy that my comrades were moving on to more peaceful lives. Five of the nine—Terry, Minnie, Melba, Elizabeth, and Thelma—were all seniors now. This was to be their final year at Central, but from all appearances, the battle was not even close to resolution. Faubus regularly strutted before the television cameras to justify his decision, as if upsetting the lives of so many were a perfectly reasonable thing to do. The results of a local election he called in September gave him even more confidence that white Little Rock stood with him. In that election, Little Rock voters were asked whether they wanted “complete integration” or “none at all.” The ballot provided for nothing in between, so the outcome was no surprise: 70 percent of the voters chose “none at all.”
A Mighty Long Way Page 15
