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On the recommendation of a fellow camper at Maumelle Campground in Arkansas, I visited Little Rock Central High School. The National Parks Service runs a beautiful visitor center cattycorner from the school. Had I known then what I know now, I would have spent just a bit more time at this great site. By comparison, the Clinton Library, which was my main focus for the day, was a disappointment.

The school was built in 1927, noted for its massive size, with 100 classrooms and a student capacity of 2,000. It had a large auditorium and served as a civic center for Little Rock.

To avoid a court case like the 1954 Brown v Board of Education ruling that affirmed the 14th Amendment, the Little Rock school board decided to slowly integrate the city’s public schools. They began small in 1957, with just nine students who passed a rigorous set of standards and who accepted the challenge to be the first African American students to enter the beloved Little Rock Central High.  

But Arkansas Governor, Orval Faubus, had other ideas and plenty of populist support. Claiming that Brown v Board had usurped states’ rights, he brought state national guardsmen in to prevent the Little Rock Nine from entering the school. A federal judge ruled that use of the National Guard to block students’ entry was unlawful. A riot ensued and President Eisenhower called in soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division to escort the black students into school and ensure their safety.

The visitors center displays historic and striking black and white images of each of these nine brave students between the ages of 15 – 17, along with life stories and humbling, thoughtful quotations (like the title of this post) of their responses to what occurred. Some of the girls had stayed up late the night before, washing and ironing their button-down blouses and poofy skirts and polishing their black and white saddle shoes. The next morning they were met with shouts, threats, horrendous invectives and even spit. Fear and hatred leap palpably from images and videos showing white students and parents in full mob force. The students had been coached to remain calm, to not respond to provocation. How is that even possible at the age of 15? At any age? How many of us could rise to that level of maturity?

Faubus and his ilk quoted the Southern Manifesto, a response to Brown v Board which claimed that the Supreme Court had abused judicial power, and vowed to use all legal means possible to reverse orders to segregate schools. Americans are still divided over states’ rights versus federal  rights. We are in the same loop, and things are getting similarly violent in regards to abortion, LGBTQ+, and censorship. It is sad that we keep having to fight these human battles over again. Even when history is there for us to learn from, too many people allow their thinking to become muddled by religious and political power mongers who use craftily curated interpretations of the Bible or the Constitution to twist logic. In the 50s, in the aftermath of McCarthy’s Red Scare, people feared that desegregation was a communist plot to destroy “traditional values.” Sound familiar?

Isn’t this woefully familiar?

The images of young white men from Eisenhower’s 101st Airborne shoving rifles/bayonets into the faces of young white National Guard counterparts sent chills down my spine. They were all just kids. The soldiers barely older than the nine they were facing off over.

The following year, the unrest and vitriol resulted in all public high schools in Little Rock closing to prevent integration. Students either sat at home and lost a year, or they lived and attended school in another town. This seems particularly striking after all the vitriol that American educators and public health officials endured during the lost year(s) of the Corona Virus pandemic.

Little Rock Central is still in use today, and it is huge. Even so, not large or modern enough. An additional structure is being built on the property and infrastructure of the old building, which is an historical landmark, is being modernized. The neighborhood surrounding the high school is blighted. I wonder how many white kids attend school there now—anecdotally, I saw none. [With thanks to Old and Blessed, who commented below, I correct my assumption. “Because Central is an historic place, there is a greater number of white students there than at the other large high school (Southwest) in Little Rock. Southwest opened up a few years ago, combining two other high schools. It is state of the art, a beautiful place. Central’s racial ratio is: 52.7% Black, 32.3% white, 8.1 Asian, 8.1 Latino (2,500 students); Southwest’s is 70% Black and 24.2% Latino, 5% Latino (1,904 student).]

  • The Magnolia Mobil service station located at the corner of Daisy L. Gatson Bates Drive and Park Street was built in the 1920s, about the same time that Little Rock Central High School was built. Throughout the years, the building has served as a gas station, a hangout for students, a temporary “office” for reporters during the desegregation crisis, storage for a wholesale florist business, and a National Historic Site visitor center.
  • Finals week jitters: I waited and waited for a group of students to leave this statue, but they were in high debate about something. So I gave up and included them, South Central students of today, in the image. Who knows what is at stake in their lives?

The Smithsonian claims, “The task of a great museum is to not merely to revisit historic events, but rather to help stir our minds and souls.” The Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site most certainly provoked my mind and my heart.

For more reading about the integration of Little Rock schools:

Old and Blessed; A state of perpetual heart ache

Beals, Melba Pattillo. Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock’s Central High School.

Fradin, Dennis Brindell, and Judith Bloom Fradin. The Power of One: Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine.

LaNier, Carolotta Walls. A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School.

Levine, Kristin. The Lions of Little Rock; Friendship is more than skin Deep. New York: Puffin, 2012

Walker, Paul. Remember Little Rock: The Time, The People, The Stories.