A Mighty Long Way: Chapters 3–5

I didn’t see families that looked like mine—happy black families—on TV, but we were a stable clan with two loving, doting parents.

Our parents were very protective and would have demanded to go along if they’d had any inkling of trouble, particularly Gloria’s father.

And in L. C. Bates, a longtime newspaperman, Daisy Bates had found a partner and kindred spirit willing to use the editorial pages of their newspaper to take a stand for civil rights and to rally against police brutality, the mistreatment of black war veterans in the city, and other injustices against black residents.

Superintendent Blossom obviously was feeling the pressure because he would raise that overtly sexual issue when he met with us students and our parents face-to-face at the August meeting.

What if they accidentally bumped a white girl? Or, God forbid, smiled at one? Would it be misinterpreted? Would they be reprimanded?

But unlike some members of my family who believed to the core in the old edict that “children should be seen, not heard,” Daddy would hear me out if I objected to his decision.

Everybody in the family knew that Mother was a fastidious seamstress who usually made all of my clothes.

And unlike his past opponents, he was not a strident segregationist.

And neither was Faubus a Marvin Griffin, the brash Georgia governor who promised to keep the schools in his state segregated “come hell or high water.”

In late August, when the Mothers League filed a temporary injunction in Pulaski County Chancery Court to halt the integration of Central indefinitely, Faubus even testified as a surprise witness.

He wore a dark suit and tie and spoke with a southern drawl typical of white politicians of his ilk.

Now that a federal court has ruled that no further litigation is possible before the forcible integration of Negroes and whites in Central High School tomorrow, the evidence of discord, anger, and resentment has come to me from so many sources as to become a deluge.

U.S. District Court judge Ronald Davies, the magistrate who had nullified the initial injunction, ordered the school system to proceed the next day with integration at Central.

U.S. District Court judge Ronald Davies, the magistrate who had nullified the initial injunction, ordered the school system to proceed the next day with integration at Central.

My parents could have decided right then that the risks were too high and withdrawn me from Central. I’m grateful that they did not. Instead, they remained calm and resolute.

Over the weeks that my cohorts and I were out of school, Mrs. Bates became our point person—the one who arranged media interviews and often the one who spoke for us.

I didn’t understand then how necessary the media was to this greater good the nine of us had been anointed to carry out.

Melba and Minnijean were the gregarious ones, both outgoing and outspoken.

The department’s investigation had found no credence to the governor’s claims that he called out the National Guard to keep the peace based on evidence that violence would erupt at Central if black students were admitted.

I suppose I had been conditioned to expect diplomacy, perhaps even deference, from a black lawyer practicing in a room full of white people.

He spoke his mind, and he did so unapologetically, indignantly.

Like Marshall, the judge didn’t mince words.

In one of the earlier hearings, he told Faubus: “The testimony and arguments this morning were, in my judgment, as anemic as the petition itself.... In an organized society there can be nothing but ultimate confusion and chaos if court decrees are flouted, whatever the pretext.”

In one of the earlier hearings, he told Faubus: “The testimony and arguments this morning were, in my judgment, as anemic as the petition itself.... In an organized society there can be nothing but ultimate confusion and chaos if court decrees are flouted, whatever the pretext.”

They answered questions thoughtfully and articulately about why they wanted to attend Central and what happened when we had tried to enter on September 4.

Judge Davies didn’t take long to render his decision: The National Guard had to go.

He lambasted Davies and the Department of Justice. He also took one more swipe at the NAACP.

The chaos had started even before we arrived. News photographers and reporters captured the upheaval that unfurled when four black journalists who had been with us at the Bateses’ home made it to the scene just moments ahead of us.

Incensed by this man’s proud composure, the mob grew more virulent in their attack.

In his own account of the incident, Wilson later wrote that a vision of Elizabeth Eckford “as she with dignity strode through a jeering, hooting gauntlet of segregationists” had flashed in his mind and given him the courage to face the mob on his feet.

They were accomplished professionals, but in the wooded hamlets and Klan territory throughout Mississippi, Alabama, and on this day Little Rock, they were as reviled as the subjects they traveled miles to cover.

They were accomplished professionals, but in the wooded hamlets and Klan territory throughout Mississippi, Alabama, and on this day Little Rock, they were as reviled as the subjects they traveled miles to cover.

There was much speculation then about whether there was some kind of agreement for those four men to distract the crowd while the nine of us entered the building, but Wilson and his colleagues all denied it.

Of course, as a fourteen-year-old, I likely wouldn’t have been privy to such information anyhow, but I’ve never believed that those four journalists were doing anything in that moment other than their jobs.

As that sickening spate of violence unfolded, I was likely stepping into my first class of the day, Mrs. Huckaby’s English class, where I was oblivious to the commotion outside.

Wild and erroneous reports about students being beaten and bloodied had even made it to the airwaves.

The federal law and orders of a United States District Court, implementing that law, cannot be flouted with impunity by any individual, or any mob of extremists.

I repeat my expressed confidence that the citizens of Little Rock and of Arkansas will respect the law and will not countenance violations of law and order by extremists.

“You have nothing to fear from my soldiers, and no one will interfere with your coming, going, or your peaceful pursuit of your studies...,” he told them. “[My soldiers] are here because they have been ordered to be here. They are seasoned, well-trained soldiers, many of them combat veterans. Being soldiers, they are as determined as I to carry out their orders.”

The granite eyes of those four Greek gods and goddesses above my head seemed to peer down at me: Ambition. Personality. Opportunity. Preparation. Walk with me now, I implored.