Warriors Don't Cry (6 page)

“That was your father on the phone.” Mother appeared to be annoyed as she spoke. “He said to pay close attention to the news because he got a call today saying Melba’s been assigned to go to Central High with the white people.”

All ears perked up when the announcer started talking about Little Rock. He said seventeen children from my community had been selected to enter the all-white Central High School in the 1957 fall term.

Grandma stood and walked over to the television set, signaling us to be silent. The announcer talked about Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP asking the Federal District Court to start integration immediately. A judge had agreed and issued an order preventing Mrs. Thomason and her mothers’ group from interfering.

We all stood like statues as the newsman talked about Little Rock’s segregationists, who were determined to stop our children from entering white schools at any cost. I couldn’t make myself stand still; an awful fear vibrated through my body.

Conrad asked if he could go, too. Grandma India said an emphatic “No.” By then Mother was pale, her lips drawn tight as she glared at me. All of them circled around me, like the covered wagons I’d seen in Western movies, when settlers wanted to fend off an Indian attack. With horrified expressions, they looked at me as though I had lied, or sassed Grandma, or grown a second nose. I stood in the middle of the room, hoping the floor would swallow me up as they grilled me.

When had I planned on telling them? Why did I sign my name to the paper saying I lived near Central and wanted to go, without asking their permission? Did I consider that my decision might endanger our family? All the while I was trying to back away from their harsh inquisition. I no longer cared the least bit about Little Rock; I just wanted to live right there in Cincinnati.

It was like a nightmare—suddenly my joy and freedom ended. All night they yelled and paced and discussed. By morning, Mama wasn’t talking to me. She ate breakfast with a frown on her face. Grandma’s mouth was poked out, but she talked to me, saying over and over again that I was too smart for my britches.

That was the end of my vacation. We hurried home to begin living a life I had never imagined in my wildest dreams. Grandma called it “all Hades breaking loose.”

I was drowning in unfamiliar activities and sounds—the sound of the constantly ringing telephone, of people talking loud in my ear and expressing their views about integration, of reporters’ urgent voices describing what integration might do to the city and the South, and of official-looking adults lecturing me about integration for hours in closed meetings.

Meetings—my life was filled with meetings, boring meetings with the white superintendent of schools, the school board, with Central High School officials, with NAACP officials. For the first time, I met Mrs. Daisy Bates, a petite and smartly dressed, steely-eyed woman who was the Arkansas state president of the NAACP. She seemed very calm and brave considering the caravans of segregationists said to be driving past her house and tossing firebombs and rocks through her windows. They saw her as their enemy not only because of her position but because she and her husband owned the
Arkansas State Press
, a newspaper that was the sole voice for our community.

I watched her in action as she spoke up on our behalf during one of those first meetings with members of the school administration. They made it clear they were not our friends and that it would be better if we changed our minds and returned to our own school. Right away they warned us that we would not be permitted to participate in any extracurricular activities. Absolutely not, voices chimed in in unison, and their collective heads shook no. Would we like to withdraw because of that fact, they asked. Although we all were startled by their declaration and their question, we took only a moment to reply. We would continue no matter what.

The only good thing about the meetings was that they allowed me to visit with my friends—the other students who would be integrating Central. I had known most of them all my life. At one point there had been sixteen others, but some of them chose not to participate because of the threats of violence. It frightened me to see our number dwindling. Still, I was delighted with those I knew were definitely going.

In the end, there were nine of us. Ernest Green, the oldest and a senior, was a member of my church. His warm eyes and quick smile greeted me each week at Sunday School. His aunt, Mrs. Gravely, had taught me history in junior high.

Tall, thin Terrence Roberts was a junior like me, and a friend since first grade. He was a very verbal person who could be counted on to give the funniest, most intelligent analysis of any situation. I adored his way of always humming a cheerful tune when he wasn’t talking.

Jefferson Thomas was a quiet, soft-spoken athlete—tops in his class. His sense of humor was subtle, the kind that makes you giggle aloud when you’re not supposed to.

Elizabeth Eckford was petite, a very quiet, private person who had smiled and waved at me across the hallway at our old school. She was regal in her bearing and, like all of us, very serious about her studies.

Thelma Mothershed and I were friends who saw each other frequently. Small like Elizabeth, but with a very pale complexion, her wise eyes peered through thick-lensed horn-rimmed glasses. She had a heart problem that, at times, changed her pallor to a purplish hue and forced her to rest on her haunches to catch her breath.

Best of all, my special friend Minnijean Brown was going. Since she lived only a block away from me, we saw each other almost every day. We had much in common; both of us were tall for our age, and we shared daydreams—our worship of Johnny Mathis and Nat Cole, and our desire to sing.

Carlotta Walls was an athlete, very sleek and wonderfully energetic. Everything she said or did was quickly executed. She was a girl-next-door type, always in a good mood, always ready to try something new.

Gloria Ray was another member of my Sunday School class. Delicate in stature, she was as meticulous about her attire as she was about her studies. Her all-knowing eyes grew even more intense as she spoke in softly measured words.

We integrating students shared many things in common. All of our parents were strict, no-nonsense types. Several of them were teachers and preachers, or held well-established positions in other professions. All our folks were hardworking people who had struggled to own their homes, to provide a stable life for their families. We shared many of the same family values traditional to all small-town Americans.

Our parents demanded that we behave appropriately at home and in public. I couldn’t imagine that any one of us would ever talk back to our folks or other adults. All of us were churchgoing; all our parents demanded good grades in school. Although none of us had a lot of money, we had pride in our appearance. Most of all, we were individualists with strong opinions. Each of us planned to go to college.

I felt comfortable being with them, because they were the kind of people my mother allowed me to associate with. And after a period of being together so much, I began to feel as though we had formed some kind of group—an odd family of people with one goal: to get inside Central High and stay there for the school year.
ALL my friends, adults and children alike, developed some strange need to discuss their feelings about integration. Even strangers stopped me on the street. The opinions weren’t always positive, even among my own people, as I discovered at my church one Sunday.

I was startled when a woman I’d seen often enough but didn’t really know began lecturing me. For a moment I feared she was going to haul off and hit me. She was beside herself with anger. I could barely get my good morning in because she was talking very loud, attracting attention as she told me I was too fancy for my britches and that other people in our community would pay for my uppity need to be with white folks.

Taken aback by her anger, I stood perfectly still, stunned. I knew very well I couldn’t talk back to adults, so I kept my mouth shut even though I wanted to tell her a thing or two. Just as I thought I couldn’t hold my words in a moment longer, a family friend walked by and grabbed hold of her arm. He wouldn’t let her get another word in edgewise as he explained that he believed Little Rock white folks were ready for a change, and we were just reminding them it was time by registering at Central High.

I hoped he was right about whites being ready for change. At first it seemed they had accepted the limited integration plan. I had heard only a few of my people say they expected a big problem. Oh, sure, nobody said it would be easy, but most thought it would be like integrating the buses; there would be quiet fussing and complaining and a few threats from the white folks, then things would settle down. But just before school started, we noticed in the newspaper half-page invitations to big “states’ rights” rallies where important white people urged everybody to fight integration.

At one such rally, Georgia Governor Marvin Griffin addressed a statewide meeting of about four hundred people who came for a dinner. He attacked the Supreme Court decision favoring integration, saying it took away the rights of states to govern themselves. The newspaper said Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus would have breakfast with Griffin the next morning. I worried about that meeting because I thought he would sway Faubus to do things his way. That could change our plans again. One more change and I’d be ready to pack and move to anywhere, USA.

Since I had arrived home from vacation, I didn’t know from minute to minute or day to day where I would be starting my school year. The on-again, off-again calls from the NAACP were beginning to make me nervous, even though I knew they were doing their best to help us.

On Thursday, August 29, 1957, just five days before school started, a headline in the
Arkansas Gazette
read:

Peering above the newspaper, Grandma sighed as she told me I’d better get ready to go back to my old school because it seemed as if Mrs. Thomason’s segregationist group had convinced Judge Reed that kids from our community and white students were buying guns. Governor Faubus backed up Mrs. Thomason’s testimony, saying he knew personally she was telling the truth. So Reed believed her and ruled against integration, saying it would cause violence.

I felt sad and angry that there was no hope things would ever get any better. I called my friends and got set for a year I assumed would be kind of okay because of the added privileges and respect granted a junior. I figured integration had been put off for that school year and maybe forever. Meanwhile, I was rethinking my plan to entice my family to move to Cincinnati. But on Sunday evening, September 1, two days before school was to start, word came from the NAACP not to register at our regular high school. NAACP lawyers had already gone to federal court to get us into Central High. They expected a favorable ruling.
ON Monday, September 2, Labor Day, our family gathered at Auntie Mae’s house for the last picnic of the summer. She was mother’s sister, a wonderfully round, cuddly woman with flowing wavy hair and a warm smile. A real live wire, she liked to play pranks on people and tell the kind of naughty jokes that made Mother blush and cover my ears.

Her laughter and upbeat attitude always cheered me up. People said I had some of her feisty ways in me. I was certain my Auntie Mae could do just about anything. “Rules are made to be broken,” she said. “If there’s anyone who can integrate that school, it’s you. You’re just sassy enough to pull it off.”

“Although I don’t know why you’d want to go where you’re not wanted,” said Uncle Charlie, Mother’s brother, puffing on his cigar as he hung his fedora on the hat rack by the front door.

“To heck with them,” said Auntie Mae. “Besides, I heard a rumor that Governor Faubus is gonna send the National Guard over to the school.”

“How do you know that?”

“Mamie Johnson’s cousin cooks for that school. They called to tell her where she has to check in tomorrow morning to get past the soldiers.” That began a free-for-all about integration. It was just what I didn’t want to hear. So I drifted off into my daydreams about Vince, the cute boy I liked. I pictured what it might have been like to have him pick me up in his new car at our old school where everybody could see.

Later on that night, Grandma thought we should listen to the governor’s speech on television. To our amazement, he announced he had sent troops to Central. And then he said, “They will not act as segregationists or integrationists, but as soldiers called to active duty to carry out their assigned tasks.” Then he spoke the words that made chills creep up and down my spine. “. . . But I must state here in all sincerity that it is my opinion, yes, even a conviction, that it will not be possible to restore or maintain order and protect the lives and property of the citizens if forcible integration is carried out tomorrow in the schools of this community.”

“The governor has finally flipped his wig,” Mother Lois said, glaring at the moon-faced man on the TV screen.

“He’s stirring up trouble by talking about trouble,” Grandma added. She was right, as usual. Following that speech, calls from telephone hecklers began to drive us wild. Several times during the days and nights before school opened, those voices had growled at me. “Niggers don’t belong in our schools. You-all are made for hanging,” one harsh voice shouted the first time I picked up the receiver.

On the night of the governor’s speech, the phone didn’t stop ringing. One caller said he knew our address and would be right over to bomb the house. Grandma went directly to her room, where she took the shotgun she called Mr. Higgenbottom from its leather case in the back of her closet. That night, she set up her guard post near the window to the side yard where she thought we were most vulnerable. She sat in her rocking chair beside the antique mahogany end table given her by her mother.