Thirty years later, in 1987, I happened to be in Little Rock for the very first time.  I saw Central High School which looked very much the same as the high school I had gone to.  Black students were going there in large numbers now, and one African American boy was president of the student body.  A black woman was mayor of the city.  A progressive governor by the name of Bill Clinton was in the governor's mansion.  The brother of one of the girls turned away at the high school was now the first black captain in the Arkansas state troopers, the same troopers who had barred his sister at the door.  And in just two months the Little Rock youngsters, now grown, would return as guests of the governor for a reunion.  Many had not returned to Little Rock until that time.

            No one, surely not the nine children, had any idea what they were volunteering for when they said they wanted to be among the first black children to attend Central High School .  When the courts ruled that schools had to admit students regardless of color, when integration became the law of the land, when the courts ruled that Arkansas had to follow that law, no one expected that the governor of the state would provoke a constitutional crisis by bringing out the national guard to defy that law.

            Melba Patillo's family was not happy with her when they first heard that she was one of the students selected to integrate Central High.  She had neglected to mention to her family that she had volunteered for integration.  Do any of you have a teenager like that?  Like many a teen, she was naive and hopeful.  All of the nine youngsters chosen to be the first black youngsters at Central High were outstanding students from families that emphasized and valued education.  So attending one of the best schools in the city, a school with science labs and language labs and money to spend on costumes for shows and wonderful facilities seemed very attractive.  Melba's father, who was no longer living with her family, was very scared and angry.  When the threatening phone calls began, even before the first day of school, Melba's grandmother,  India , sat up in her rocking chair all night, with a shotgun in her lap.  But her family decided to back Melba up in her decision.  They were upset and frightened for her, and yet they knew that someone had to be the first.

            Her grandmother said that perhaps that was the reason Melba had been saved from a life-threatening illness as a child, God was saving her for this work.  It was a faith that helped sustain her and her family in the times to come.

            On the first day of school when the nine youngsters arrived at Central High, they were turned back, by a state trooper.  One of the girls got separated from the group and was only saved from the angry mob by the intervention of a white reporter.  The following week the guards were removed, and the children went again. 

            This time they were in school.  Nine black children in a large school of close to 2,000 white students.  They were not allowed the “special treatment” of having any of their classes together.  So they were alone in a sea of hostile taunts, pushing, menacing.  Teachers did little to stop other children from harassing them in class, mumbling curses and epithets under their breaths or using the volleyball in gym class not as a game but as a weapon.  Melba had only one teacher, her shorthand teacher, who demanded that the class behave itself.  This felt like an island of safety.  Midway through the first day, however, all the children were brought to the office.  The mob had broken through the barricades, and thousands of angry white adults were on their way to the school.  The children overheard a discussion between school officials and the police in which at least one person suggested that they give one child to the mob to distract them while they got the other eight out.

            Fortunately, someone else pointed out that even though they were black, they were only children and that a lynching of a child would not look like responsible behavior on the part of school authorities.  So the kids were taken to the back of the school, told to get in a car and get down so they couldn't be seen, and they sped away with the angry mob chasing after them.  Two days later, President Eisenhower, reluctantly, called out soldiers, the 101st Airborne Division, to protect the school from the mob and to protect the children within the school.  It is hard to imagine that it took the U.S. military to allow nine kids to go to school.

            It is hard to imagine going through something like those youngsters went through at any age.  But to live in a sea of hostility at fifteen, the age when you are trying to find out who you are, the age when you want to be accepted, want to be liked, don't want to stand out?  Initially the kids felt “if only they get to know us they'll like us.  If I dress right with this pretty new dress, they'll see what kind of person I am.”  Then they went to school and white children would feign friendship and then begin taunting; ink would be squirted on the new dress so lovingly sewn by mother.  If the children complained to teachers, they were met with the reply — “Well, you wanted to come here, don't complain.” or “It's just your word against hers, there was no adult around to see it.”  When Melba complained about a boy who was threatening her with a switchblade, the teacher said, “Well, the poor boy has been through a lot of turmoil.”  White children who wanted to be kind were threatened by classmates.

            When the 101st arrived, they picked up the children at home and formed a military convoy.  They escorted them to the door of the school.  From there, each child got his or her own guard who would walk with them in the halls and stand outside the door of the classroom, within earshot in case the child called for help.  While this helped some, it certainly did not stop the harassment — the child who was stabbed by a flagpole, who had ink spilled on her new dress, and it didn’t prevent the vicious taunts. 

            The kids had to watch every little thing they did.  For example, they avoided drinking much water, because the bathrooms were a favorite place for a gang to get together to harm them.  One day a group of white girls stood around a bathroom stall throwing lighted paper in at one of the black girls.  She threw her books to scatter them and then ran out.  The children’s lockers would be booby-trapped.  If the children’s protectors got too far away, the kids would be pushed and shoved; many were shoved down the stairwells.  Students would walk directly behind them and walk on their heels so that their feet would bleed.  Melba Patillo Beals writes that she still has trouble with her feet stemming from that year.  In an extremely vicious incident, a white boy came up and threw acid in Melba’s eyes.  The soldier who was guarding her got her to a drinking fountain and irrigated her eyes with water.  She went home and to a doctor who said that it was only that water that saved her sight and as it was she would have to wear glasses for the rest of her life.

            Not only were the kids alone at school, but they were more and more isolated from their own black community.  The experiences they were going through, the fact that they no longer were in school with their friends, initiated a distance.  Other children and their parents were also afraid to invite the nine teenagers to their homes, for fear of the white thugs whose attention they might draw.  Many adults were critical of the children and their families for, “stirring up trouble.”  The white community put a great deal of pressure on the black community that year.  People lost jobs.  White charities cut out Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets.  Black families were denied credit at stores.  Threats were made not only against the children and their families but also against their supporters.  White supremacists filed suits to get the lists of names of supporters of the NAACP and other Civil Rights groups in order to threaten them.  The children often could not go to public places they had previously gone.

            Melba had successfully begged her grandmother to go with her Christmas shopping, but in the department store, Melba and her brother were set upon by several high school kids until they saw Melba's grandmother and her three sizable women friends coming towards them.  African American children who had been their friends were afraid to come to their homes.  All dressed up for her sweet-sixteen birthday party, Nat King Cole records ready, a teenager was devastated when none of her girlfriends showed up for the party.

            It was a dreadful isolation.  Strong families and strong faith helped.  During the various crises of the year, families would pray together before the children set off for school.  In frightening times, the children often recited prayers or psalms to themselves.  Melba credits her grandmother with giving her the spirit to continue.  Her guard at school also gave her counsel.  A well-trained soldier, he gave her tips on keeping alert, not being too predictable, having the attitude of a warrior.  He tried to train this young girl to live as if in a war zone.  Grandmother gave her some similar tips about keeping her tormentors off-balance by reacting in unexpected ways — thanking them for giving her exercise when they placed an obstacle in her path.

            Still it is impossible for me to imagine having the courage these youngsters had.  Never knowing what to expect — raw eggs thrown at you in the stairwell, showers in the gym turned to scald you, peanut butter and glass smeared on your chair.  And life threatening situations.  Melba developed one secret friend.  One day she found herself on the wrong side of the school for her after-school ride, and a gang of white boys came after her.  Another white boy came up to her, gave her the keys to his car and told her to drive away.  Although she was suspicious of his motives and fearful that she might be seen as a car thief, she had no choice and, without a license, drove the car home.  Later, the boy helped her out several times by warning her of various plans made by the hard-core segregationist students.  His parents were themselves, members of segregationist group, but Melba supposed that his sympathy for her may have come from his relationship with a black nanny that had been a substitute mother to him until his parents fired her when she was too sick to work any more.

            The children's protection was very uneven.  Authorities were always trying to cut back on the protection to provide a more “normal” environment.  But whenever they cut back, assaults and danger were increased.  Eisenhower took out Federal soldiers at Thanksgiving, leaving the children “protected” by the very state troopers who had kept them out of school only a few months previously.  Both the children and their parents and the NAACP had to put constant pressure on the school and the guards to give them some protection.

            Eight of the nine made it through the year, with Ernie Greene becoming the first black graduate of Central High.  The other children could not attend graduation to see him get his diploma, because of security concerns.  One of the nine children was expelled from school when a bowl of soup landed on some boys in a crowd of white boys surrounding her — she said by accident.  They claimed she threw it at them.  The NAACP found her a good boarding school in New York .

            The following year, Governor Faubus closed all the Little Rock High Schools.  The children continued to be under threat, and the NAACP found families all over the country willing to take in the remaining seven teenagers so that they could finish school in a safe environment.  Melba finished High School in California where she lived with a white, Quaker family, whom she still refers to as Mom and Dad.  Of the nine, only one returned to live in Little Rock and three became citizens of other countries.  All are professionals. 

            To me, the story of these teenagers is an important one for all of us to know.  In celebrating the courage of those involved in Civil Rights, we sometimes forget that the movement was thousands of ordinary people with extraordinary courage.  It was a ninety-year old man in Mississippi braving the Ku Klux Klan to register to vote.  It was the children of Birmingham hosed down by Bull Connor.  It was black and white college students from all over going to Mississippi to help in voter registration.  It was elderly Quakers giving training in non-violent resistance.  It was nine teenagers living in a war zone for nine months of their lives, the focus of the racial hatreds and hopes and confusions of a nation.  In this struggle many were killed and many more were injured in body, heart, and spirit.  There was no combat pay, only knowledge of having been a part of something large and important, of being a part of the struggle for justice.

            One of the things I found interesting in Melba Patillo Beals's account of her story is the incredible gratitude she felt to the people who did just a little to help — the shorthand teacher who made her class behave, the girl's vice-principal who tried to be fair, the few white students who were decent.  Ironically, with all the hate coming from the thousands of white people in Little Rock, some of the children had their first positive experiences with white people, white people who helped protect them as police and soldiers and even reporters, white members of the Civil Rights movement who encouraged them and taught them ways to protect themselves, white media people who looked them in the face and treated what they said as important.

            When I hear stories of the struggle against injustice, I always wonder where I would have been.  One certainly likes to think one would not be a part of the mob, but is that enough?  Is it enough to avoid evil?  Don’t we have to be a part of the struggle for justice?  I don't think things change unless thousands of people are willing and determined to stand up for the right thing.  We have to be willing to confront injustice and bigotry, not just to try to be decent ourselves.  We have to stand up in solidarity with those who are vulnerable, hurt, and oppressed, or we are a part of the problem. 

            There are events that call on us to be a part of them, and we answer the call or we turn a deaf ear and go back to mowing the lawn, working at the office, diapering the baby — all good and worthy pursuits perhaps, but not adequate to who we are called to be.  Martin Luther King didn't really have the time or desire to become the leader of the bus boycott, he was new in town, a young man in his twenties just starting a new job and a young family, but when they told him he was needed to unify the black community of Montgomery, he answered the call.  The nine children in Little Rock didn't plan to be warriors on the front-line of the battle for justice, but when things became so very hard, they didn't quit.

            Melba Beals writes that even knowing what she knows now, the lasting effects of the pain, the struggle, the terror that she went through that year, she would make the same choice.  Not that she would want to, but that she would want someone to make that leap forward and so she would again volunteer so that it could be done.  One of the reasons to remember this history is to celebrate that kind of courage.  So in this anniversary year, we celebrate the virtue of moral courage.  We celebrate everyone who stepped forward to change the injustice of this land during the Civil Rights movement, and we celebrate those who step forward today to do justice, protect the vulnerable, and challenge oppression.  Moral courage is not for some famous few.  Even a fifteen-year-old child can have it.

Updated Jan 1, 2008 wfr