Warriors Don't Cry

A month or two ago, Joel Klein highly recommend that I read Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High (www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416948821/tilsoncapitalpar <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416948821/tilsoncapitalpar> ), and I'm really glad he did -- it's a riveting book (published in 1995) that I couldn't put down once I started it this week.  

I suspect most people are like I was: I had heard of this battle in 1957, in which President Eisenhower had to call out the 101st Airborne Division to face down the racist governor and mob, but had no idea of the details -- that calling out the 101st was only the beginning of the drama, a school year filled with near-death experiences for the nice brave black teenagers who showed Gandhi-like courage and willingness to turn the other cheek.  
 
Here's an excerpt from the book, written by one of the students, Melba Pattillo Beals, describing what school was like halfway through the school year, after the 101st had been withdrawn:

Even before lunch on our first day back,  we had all begun to experience a hell we could not have imagined.  The  rumor was that the White Citizens Council would pay reward money to the person  who could incite us to misbehave and get ourselves expelled.  It was  apparent that many students were going for that reward.
 
Boys on motorcycles threw an iron pipe at  the car in which Gloria and Carlotta rode to school.  Inside school, the  group of students whose talent was walking on my heels until they bled met me  after each and every class to escort me to the next.  I would speed up,  they would speed up.  I couldn't escape, no matter what I did.   Ernie and Jeff were bombarded with wet towels, and boys overheated their  showers.  Gloria and Elizabeth were shoved and kicked.  Carlotta was  tripped in the hall, and I was knocked face forward onto the floor.   Thelma was spared some of the physical abuse during that period because of her  petite stature and fragility, but even she was jostled.
 
One of the ever-present and most annoying  pastimes was spraying ink or some foul-smelling, staining yellow substance on  our clothes, on our books, in our lockers, on our seats, or on whatever of  ours they could get their hands on...
 
A short time after Minnijean's return, a  boy doused her with what appeared to be a bucket of soup.  She froze in  her tracks and did not respond, even as the greasy liquid trickled down her  cheat and horror painted her face.  Afterward, a group of perhaps fifty  students gathered outside the principal's office to shout cheers for the  douser...
 
Large, boisterous groups of hecklers  stared intently and harassed the living daylights out of us.  On several  occasions, seventy or so students showed up at school wearing all black to  protest our presence.  Those were known as "black days."
 
The segregationists organized a systemic  process for phoning our homes at all hours of the night to harass us.   They also phoned our parents at their places of work and any other relatives  or friends they could annoy.  One day, Terrence's mother rushed into the  principal's office, having been called and told her son was seriously injured,  only to find the call had been a hoax.  Repeated bomb threats were  telephoned to our homes.

The entire school year was just like this.  I don't think I would have lasted a week, yet 8 of the 9 students lasted the entire year and the one senior became the first black graduate of Central High.
 
In a little-known footnote, Gov. Faubus (who just before he died in 1994 said if he had to do it all over again, he'd do the same thing) closed ALL Little Rock schools for TWO FULL YEARS before Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP were able to get them opened.  I'm sure the white students were mostly able to go to private schools, while the black students in Little Rock lost precious years of education (I believe that this was a common technique elsewhere as well in response to integration).
 
This book captures very important history that resonates to this day.  Read the last article below about how black leaders in South Carolina are wondering whether integration has served black children in that state well...



--------------------
Blacks rethink school choice
Pastors, lawmakers say S.C. poorly educates many pupils
By RODDIE BURRIS, 7/22/07
rburris@thestate.com <mailto:rburris@thestate.com>  
http://www.thestate.com/news/v-print/story/125275.html

Sen. Darrell Jackson remembers his days at racially segregated Atlas Road Elementary School as good days.