Reliving Little Rock 50 Years Later

BOSTON—As one of the students of the “Little Rock Nine” recounted her story under Faneuil Hall’s towering ceiling last night, her words were interrupted with short, poignant pauses.

Fifty years ago last month, Carlotta W. LaNier and eight fellow students became the first blacks to integrated into Central High—a previously all-white Arkansas school—under the order of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and over the fierce objections of the state’s governor. Each day they passed a gauntlet of violent parents and students, and the nine students became symbols of the civil rights movement.

Last night, LaNier and her fellow classmates guests of honor spoke before a crowd of more than 300 that included Gov. Deval L. Patrick ’78 and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

It was a role she had never imagined.

“I had no idea we would be honored in this great city of Boston, in this great state of Massachusetts,” she said.

The Faneuil Hall event—which took the form of a panel discussion moderated by Harvard’s Climenko Professor of Law Charles J. Ogletree Jr, the civil rights scholar—posed the question of what the nine had achieved and what is in store for the future.

“I hope for all the young people here that you appreciate that this is your legacy,” Patrick said. “Access to great education is what you, the Little Rock Nine, made possible for me.”

Patrick challenged students and the younger generation to follow in the Little Rock Nine’s footsteps.

“Coming to acknowledge what these fine and brave people did in their time ought to make us ask the question: What are we doing for our time?” he said.

The former students added similar sentiments, expressing hope that their actions would inspire others to take similar risks.

“Fifty years ago, we had a vision about connecting education with opportunity,” said Ernest Green, one of the Little Rock Nine. “I said if Little Rock Central was going to be desegregated, I wanted to be part of it.”

While the integration of Central High School was a decisive historical moment in the civil rights movement, the panel reminded the audience that they were real people with real emotions.

“Little Rock gave me an opportunity to learn more about myself,” said Terrence Roberts, who is now a psychologist in Pasadena, Calif. “What I discovered in the midst of all that is no matter how afraid you are, you can still maintain goal-oriented behavior.”

But the chance to change history was not the only reason that motivated the Little Rock Nine. Jefferson Thomas said that he simply wanted to escape his older siblings’ shadow.

“I have seven older siblings who were in all black education systems,” he said. “I did not know that all this would come just because I changed schools.”

Boston City Councillor Sam Yoon and Cambridge City Councillor Brian Murphy delivered resolutions passed by their councils on the Little Rock Nine.

“We stand on your shoulders,” Yoon said. “And the view is good.”

—Staff writer Kevin Zhou can be reached at kzhou@fas.harvard.edu.