"This is not an easy thing, but we didn't expect it to become like this." . "You must learn how to deal with adversity. I think we all have it. "
Adversity seems to be insufficient to describe the experience of black teenagers going to school on the morning of September 4th. 1957. On September 23rd, under the order of Arkansas Governor oval Forbes, the heavily armed Arkansas National Guard escorted the nine African-American students to junior and senior high schools. They were killed after a legal war.
The judge ordered the dissolution of the National Guard. But in the chaos and riots, the students were taken away a few hours later. Lanier wore her skirt for the first two days of her sophomore year in high school.
Lanier said that the skirts she wore on September 4 and 23 were bought in the store, not the clothes made by her mother. She is a tailor who specializes in making clothes for everyone in the family. (NMAAHC, a gift from carlotta Wolth Lanier) I want you to think that I am 14 years old, ranking first. Secondly, on the basis of all these, our basic theme is that we have a right based on Brown v. Board of Education. "This is the decision of the Supreme Court," said Lanier, a 74-year-old man. "My parents always told me,' No matter whether the door is cracked or not, you should be ready to enter'.
Lagnel is the youngest of nine black students enrolled by Daisy Bates, president of the NAACP in Arkansas. She was the first African-American in high school. This is after the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education 1954, the US Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. In a related judgment, the court ruled that all public schools in the country should be integrated at a "deliberate speed", and Lanier and eight other students received in-depth consultation to ensure that they were determined to endure possible hostile situations. She knew that a new black high school was about to start, but Lanier wanted to go to high school because there were better resources there.
"This will at least give you a chance to own these books. The latest book. You have a chance to get a better education, and that's all in the final analysis. This has nothing to do with our poor teacher. We have great teachers. Lagnel said, "They just didn't achieve the same results as Little Rock Central High School. It was not until the registration card was sent to the mailbox in July that her parents knew that she had enrolled in Central High School. Lanier remembers that this is just a normal thing, because she was raised by a bricklayer's father and a housewife's mother.
"My father's eyes widened when he saw the postcard. It doesn't matter to me. They are all proud of me for doing so. But the school she chose and the racial tensions surrounding these nine students did affect her family. " My father lost all his jobs. Once they find out who he is. One by one. So it's hard for them, but they still support it. I often say in my speeches that heroes and snowmen are parents.
She said that before you become a parent, you don't know what kind of things you will allow your children to participate in, and you don't know whether you will allow your children to participate.
"Now my parents really don't know, nor do other parents, but they support us. They don't want to give up, "Lanier explained. "We are children at school, harassed and bullied from one extreme to the other, but we persisted."
Seven students from Little Rock No.9 Middle School, including Melba Patillo Bierce, carlotta Wolth Lanier, Jefferson Thomas, Elizabeth Eckford, Selma Wyle, Terrence Roberts and Gloria Ray Chamak, met Bates at Daisy's home. Gift from NMAAHC, Elmer J. Whiting, III? Ranier and other students, Minnian Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Selma Mather, Melba Patillo, Gloria Ray, Terrence Roberts and Jefferson Thomas, endured too many daily insults and worse. Patillo was punched and kicked, white students burned a black portrait in the open space opposite the school, and Ray was pushed down a flight of stairs. But Lanier said that just entering the school building is a challenge, because Little Rock is considered a medium-sized city, so few people expected Governor Forbes to announce that he was calling the Arkansas National Guard to protect citizens from violence if black students were allowed to enter. Lanier remembers that her father was going to work on September 4th, and her mother sent her to a ministerial group recruited by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to escort teenagers to school. Eight people came together. But Eckford didn't know the plan and came alone. One photo shows her walking to school with a notebook in her hand amid the screams of a group of white adults and students.
Then came to the corner of the school, which was a closed team of the National Guard. Finally the policeman came up and said. "Take these children home," Lanier said, still sounding angry. "Then what do you mean?" We asked. At that time, we knew that they really came to stop us, not to protect the citizens of Little Rock.
After several weeks of fighting in the federal court led by NAACP lawyer (eventually US Supreme Court Justice thurgood marshall), federal judge Richard Davis ordered the National Guard to withdraw from the school. On September 23rd, the first day of Lagniel, the police in Little Rock escorted the nine black students through the bubble crowd of about 1000 white people.
"We went in through the side door, some NAACP marshals and some Little Rock fathers. Like 8: 30 in the morning, by 1 1 30, they have rescued us from there. The city sent the best people in Little Rock, about 17. It was everything around the school, and they couldn't stop so many people, "Lanier recalled. "The children jumped out of the window, and some people said,' Catch one, let's hang them.' "
Lanier has a geometry class at the back of the school. When the police came to take her away, she said she read the evening paper.
It was on the radio, too. I think it's because my mother was standing in the yard and the police let me go. She got calls from her sister and my aunt, and so on, "Go up and pick me up", but she couldn't do it anyway. The white hair on her head. From that day on, "Lanier said,
It is also obtained from the museum's collection. That's carlotta Voss Lanier's diploma from Little Rock Central High School, dated1July 8, 960. Carlotta Walls Lanier donated her report card from Little Rock Central High School to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. (NMAAHC, a gift from carlotta Wolth Lanier) The short political life in the museum described me and Daisy Bates, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. A mimeographed document with apartheid remarks quoted Daisy Bates, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. On September 24th, President dwight eisenhower dispatched 200 members of the US Army 1, 0 1 Airborne Division and put them in charge of the 1, 000 National Guard on duty. On September 25th, "Little Rock 9" was escorted by troops for the first time. We are taken to a military station wagon every day, with a jeep in front and a jeep in the back. "Guns, they are all moving back and forth in the corridor," Lanier said. I told the children today that there was a helicopter buzzing over my school. 1200 soldiers are camping on campus. I don't want to see such a thing happen to them or any other educational institution. This is not the way to school.
1958 In May, Ernest Green became the first African-American to graduate from high school. However, in order to prevent blacks from entering, Governor Forbes closed the high school in Little Rock for a whole year, and it was not reopened until August 1959. Lagnel returned to Central High School and graduated from 1960.
Lanier said that all the clothes she wore on September 4 and 23 were bought in the store, and none of them were made by her mother. She is a tailor who specializes in making clothes for everyone in the family. Holloway, her emerald uncle, felt that there should be something special on the first day to integrate the original all-white central high school.
"Their uncle came to my house and gave my mother $20. He said,' I want you to buy her a dress bought in the store. I want you to take her downtown and buy her a new dress for school. "I went downtown with her to choose," Lanier said.
But it wasn't until around 1976 that Lanier discovered that his mother had kept this dress. Lanier lent it to the Charles Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit for a while and considered several other options. But later, she decided to donate it to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., along with the graduation certificate and report card of Little Rock High School. She said that she thought about how her children and many other people in this country visited the Smithsonian Museum to learn about American history.
"I think these children need to understand this history. You know there are no citizens in their school. They have no history and are not allowed to take history classes, "Lanier said. "When you really look back at the history of this country, we know that we have lived in this country for 335 years in one way, and 1954 Brown v. Board of Education changed all this."
Lagnel said that the country's progress, including the Civil Rights Act and other legislation, including the Voting Rights Act, all originated from this foundation. KDSPE""KDSPs Yes, we did it very roughly. We could have been killed. My house was bombed. "I mean, I've been through a lot," Lanier said. "63 years later, we came here. You shortened 63 years to a one-way life in your 330s. You see, we have accumulated a lot. Now we must catch it.