Little Rock, AR is a treasure trove for
the historical study of the convergence of public education in America and the
American civil rights movement. In the fight for educational equality, the name
Little Rock will forever resonate through American history.
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| Little Rock 9 |
The segregation Jim Crow laws were never meant to punish blacks and reward whites. Instead, their intent was to deliberately drive a wedge between blacks and poor whites. Segregation gave poor whites a sense of a superior social rank over their African-American neighbors, in essence, protecting the economic standing of the white elite minority by assuring the unlikelihood of an overwhelming majority interracial economic alliance of poor whites and blacks.
In the 1960’s`, Bill Moyers was a young staffer for
President Lyndon Johnson. The renowned journalist recalls that in 1964, and
after a long night of bourbon fueled racial discussion, the President gave his
view of the racial unrest and the ensuing crisis enveloping the nation. “I’ll
tell you what’s at the bottom of it,” Johnson said, “If you can convince the
lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re
picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty
his pockets for you.”
Even for those whites today old enough to have borne
first hand witness to Jim Crow society, it is the black and white photos that
are etched into our national memory that create the most vivid recall: Governor
George Wallace of Alabama blocking the schoolhouse door; fierce attack dogs
released on protesters; the funeral of three little black girls laid out in
Sunday Church dresses, children murdered by a racist segregationist bomber;
water hoses turned on peaceful protesters; gruesome lynchings with large crowds
of smiling white “spectators,” some even children.
Many well-meaning whites of the 1950’s and 60’s - some
good people, some even sitting around my grandma’s table drinking coffee-
goodhearted and morally upright in every other way - were nonetheless loyal supporters of
racial separation. Biblical justification or states’ rights were standard
rationale for progressive and moderate whites of the day, when defending the
necessity of Jim Crow. The condescending, paternalistic benevolence for “our
colored friends” who are just not ready yet to lead as equals was an argument often
given a polite accepting nod of approval by mainstream white society.
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| 1957 State's Rights |
Often forgotten by history is the unpleasant reality that
many black leaders benefited themselves from Jim Crow era segregation, keeping
the black populace under their leadership in its place. For doing the bidding
for the white establishment who could then keep their hands clean in a Jim Crow
segregated town, the reward to such black overseers could be substantial.
There is lots of guilt to go around.
*****
Frustrated with the lack of progress, in 1957,Little
Rock Central High School was targeted by those determined to integrate American
public schools. Nine black students from Little Rock's all-black Horace Mann
High School would attempt to attend classes at Little Rock Central High
School.
Central High School was viewed as a strategic choice to
push the issue of school desegregation; a long time bastion of white pride in a
city that was in many ways, for the time, viewed as a moderate city on the
issue of civil rights. Several members of the all-white school board favored desegregation.
After three years of foot dragging resistance
by southern states to implementing fully the federal edict set forth by the
landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision, President Dwight
Eisenhower took decisive action. Little Rock became ground zero in the nation’s
fight over school segregation. The country held its collective breath as a
colossal constitutional crisis of wills unfolded.
The lines were now clearly drawn:
federal army vs. state police, federal law vs. state law, federal supremacy vs.
state sovereignty, Jim Crow separate but equal vs. the constitutional guarantee
that all men are created equal.
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| 101st Airborne Division |
On September 4, 1957, the first day of
classes for the fall term, a white mob formed a human wall to block the front
entrance of Central High School and deny entry to the black teenagers destined
to be named by history as the Little Rock Nine. The Arkansas National Guard
(including some young men who had months before graduated from LRC High),
following orders of the Governor, stood back-up to the increasingly violent
mob. For their own safety, the nine black students were hastily, by their
sponsors, driven away from the school.
Future Supreme Court Judge
Thurgood Marshall, on behalf of the students and the NAACP, appealed to the
federal district court to secure an injunction to stop the governor’s denial of
the students’ entry. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. personally appealed to President
Eisenhower to intervene on behalf of the students. King warned the President
that if the state of Arkansas was allowed to defy federal law, the cause of
integration would be set back 50 years. Reluctantly, Eisenhower took the
politically unpopular step of agreeing with King and sent in the Army’s 101st
Airborne Division to protect the students. They would remain on campus until
graduation, the following June.
On September 23, 1957, the black
students finally successfully entered the school. In June, 1958, Ernest Green
became the first African-American to graduate from Central High School.
In the end, the progressives won. The
Governor temporarily backed down and Little Rock Central High School was
racially integrated. Under the heavy shadow of Army bayonets, federal law held
supreme; but the price was steep and the fight was far from over.
In August of 1958, only weeks before the
start of the new school year, Governor Faubus closed all four of Little Rock’s
public high schools in an attempt to derail segregation. The standoff did not
last for long. In December 1959, the US Supreme Court ruled the state’s action
unlawful and the now desegregated Little Rock Central High School was reopened.
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| 1957 Little Rock Central Tigers |
The Tigers were so good their second
string was recognized by many coaches in the state as the second best team in
Arkansas. They took on all (white) comers. When the other high schools in the state
couldn’t mount a challenge to Central, the Tigers of 1957 took to the road and
beat the best teams from Texas, Tennessee, Louisiana and Kentucky. They often
played to crowds larger than even the University of Arkansas Razorbacks of the
day could muster. The No. 1 team in Kentucky, Tilghman High of
Paducah, was steamrolled by the Little Rock Central juggernaut, 46-13.
"The greatest high school football team I've ever seen," was the
assessment of a stunned Tilghman coach, Ralph McRight. So dominant were the
Tigers that they punted only once during the 12 game season.
Ralph Brodie was a star on the '57 team,
He was a state track and field champion in the high hurdles and president of
Central's student body. In the fall of 1957, he was interviewed by Mike Wallace
on the CBS Evening News.
Wallace: Would you say the sentiment
[among students] is mostly toward integration or segregation?
Brodie: We are going to have to have
integration sometime, so we might as well have it now.
Wallace: Would it make a big difference
to you if you saw a white girl dating a Negro boy?
Brodie: I believe it would.
Wallace: Why?
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| AR Gov. Faubus |
Brodie: I don't know. I just was brought
up that way.
Wallace: Do you think Negroes are equal
in intelligence, and physically, to white people?
Brodie: If they have had the same
benefits and advantages, I think they're equally as smart.
When the interview was aired, the
organized segregationists of Little Rock were furious with the sellout by one
of their own. Brodie received death threats.
.
But the winds of change were now blowing
- destined to soon reach gale force levels. Legendary Tiger's coach Wilson
Matthews was gruff and crude, but also perceptive and pragmatic; he had
glimpsed the future. Soon, he'd told his team, "there'll be black boys
here so tall they can stand flat-footed and piss in a wagon bed, and you white
boys won't even be team managers."
Under the oversight of army helicopters
and howitzer cannons, the 1957 Little Rock Central Tigers turned in what many
experts to this day claim to be the most dominant season in state high school
football history. However, even in a southern state crazy for high school
football, they are today a mere historical footnote, mostly forgotten and
overshadowed by nine lonely and scared teenagers seeking an education beyond the
stranglehold of Jim Crow.
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| Little Rock Central High School |
After winning the first two games of 1958, stretching the
winning streak to 35, the inevitable day arrived. New Orleans’ Istrouma High
School stunned Central 42–0.
As the 1958 season progressed, many of Coach Mathews’
stalwarts began to jump a sinking ship, enrolling in area high schools where they could both play football and earn a high school diploma. The winning
streak and the days of an all-white Little Rock Central football team had both
been permanently laid to rest.
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