Caught Behind the Lines

Caught Behind the Lines:

Teachers in Crisis at Central High

Introduction

Until the fall of 1957, Little Rock, Arkansas was merely a sleepy, southern city, tucked away in the heartland of America. The calamity that placed it upon the world stage centered around the integration of Central High School. This paper is based largely upon interviews with Shirley Stancil, a counselor and teacher at Central that year.1 It will review the historical event and address the challenges faced by those who shepherded nine black children through a war between the will of the federal government and the whims of local politics. In a school under siege, they were called upon to maintain decorum, to teach and expect students to learn in what was, in essence, a war zone.2 Important to this study are the opportunity costs, i.e., the human sacrifice, for such is indubitably tied to the theme of this conference. And finally, it is important to consider the legacy of the event.

The Story

Overnight, Little Rock became a place universally recognized, a milestone like Lexington and Concord, a salvo of educational change heard around the world. A palatial campus housing some 2000 students, Central was noted primarily for academic excellence and football; it was to become the sight of the showdown between segregationists and the word of the U. S. Supreme Court. The five-story, stone building in the heart of the city stood like a mighty fortress.

Teachers knew they were receiving perhaps as many as 15 African-American students that fall. They had to be good students, but, more importantly, they had to have nerves of steel, and unmeasurable determination. From the original number, nine prepared to enter Central. All endured harassment that even the best of us adults would find unnerving, but the pressure was especially intense on Ernest Green, the young man who would become the first black graduate of a previously all-white, southern high school.3 An Eagle Scout and member of the National Honor Society, Ernest could have been president of the student body, or the senior class, had he remained in the black school. Every account of his demeanor is exemplary.4 Honest to the core, affable, polite, good-hearted, and, thankfully, good-natured, no better person could have been drafted for this awesome chore. Every day, he has said, "...you put on your armor and prepared to do battle."5

On the first day the students attempted to enter, the governor of the state, Orval Faubus, had brought out the National Guard (the state militia) to bar their entry. Eight of the nine arrived and left together. Elizabeth Eckford, on the other hand, had not gotten the word that there might be trouble. All alone, this young 15-year-old walked toward the school. Guards crossed their bayonets in front of her. When she tried to retreat, the mob surrounded her, yelling, spitting, pushing, threatening. "Get her. Linch the black bitch!" "Get a rope and drag her over to this tree." 6

Daisy Bates, president of the Arkansas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), had been concerned the night before and thought perhaps the presence of ministers might discourage violence. She called Rev. Dunbar Ogden, president of the Interracial Ministerial Alliance. He was skeptical. When the next morning dawned, Bates and the children headed toward the mob in front of the high school, where four ministers met them, two black and two white -- Rev. Ogden (with his son, David) and Will Campbell of Nashville, Tennessee. The night before the second attempt to integrate Central, these two men appeared at the Bates' to pray with them. Daisy suggested that it was the children who really needed prayer. They went to the homes of all nine and prayed with them.7 Rev. Ogden was later dismissed from his church and his son, David, after enduring repeated ignominious assaults, committed suicide in 1960.8

Two weeks passed. The governor failed to remove the National Guard and insisted on keeping schools segregated by force. The President of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, held a nationally televised news conference to announce he was sending in the 101st Airborne, the Screaming Eagles.9 Early the morning after their arrival, they marched across the Broadway Bridge through the middle of the city in full battlefield regalia and surrounded the beleaguered school.

It was at sunset on a brisk fall day that I first pulled up to 16th and Park; I paused to picture how it would have been back then. This tree-shaded intersection had been Roadblock Alpha. There were barriers there and troops questioned anyone who tried to pass. Lines of armed paratroopers stretched for two city blocks. Patrol jeeps drove back and forth. Infantrymen, their walkie-talkies crackling, watched from the rooftop like soldiers in guard towers. A military helicopter hovered overhead. The tension was as thick as the humidity.

An army station wagon picked up the Little Rock Nine at the Bates' home. Each youngster was assigned his/her own personal paratrooper. When they arrived at school, at the spot they had been turned away from on an earlier day, Ernest turned to his friends and said, "I guess we're going to get into school today."10

Getting in was just the beginning. Each day the teachers were given a memo from the principal, Jess Matthews, a person who achieved near-sainthood in the eyes of Stancil and others whose accounts we have.11 He reminded them of their duty. He thought of every possible contingency. He spoke to the white students, as well, insisting that they call upon their heritage and pride. By September 18, 1957, his doctor had prescribed for him some tranquilizers. By the end of the year, all of the staff members would be on some sort of medication.12

The teachers had to arrive earlier than usual to pass through guarded entrance ways. All had been issued identification badges. Stancil and Elizabeth Huckaby, a Vice Principal, both give accounts of planning their days by the schedules of the students.13 There were certain catacombed-like crannies in the huge building that were ideal camouflage for attacks on the black students.14 As Stancil related to me, "I really could not have prevented any assault, but hoped my presence would discourage such. It was my duty to protect these children, just as I would any child. Doing so, however, was much more of a challenge than I ever expected. It is a miracle none were seriously injured or killed."15 The memory of the year is punctuated for these brave ladies by bomb threats, locker searches, repeated pranks perpetrated on the black students, and concern for their welfare as every day they negotiated the mine fields of bigotry, racism, and hatred.

Collecting cards and posters with hateful messages was an everyday affair, as was the investigation of their origin. Stancil, as counselor, was often put into the role of detective. With that chore came documentation of events, reports, and actions taken. Parents called daily repeating rumors they had heard in the community about bombs going off, black boys staring at white girls, soldiers watching the girls undress for physical education, etc.16 On top of the regular duties of faculty, teachers had to contend with the gravity of the moment. Given the climate of the city, any day might have brought physical harm to a child or to a staff member.17

The year drew to a close and Ernest did not know if he would graduate. I had read the accounts of Huckaby and Green concerning the threats on his life if he dared participate in the graduation ceremonies; I had heard his description many times of how he did not know if he would pass physics.18 It was interesting to hear Stancil's. The physics teacher was a known segregationist and had vowed he would not let Ernest graduate. He began the year by not allowing Ernest to make up what he had missed during the weeks when the black students were not yet allowed into the school. He finished it by giving Ernest an F. Stancil, when she received the grade sheet, took it, and the appropriate documentation, to Matthews, the principal, who, in turn, called the teacher in and demanded that he change the grade. Ernest had good grades in everything else, his standardized test scores were high, and there was no logic to his receiving an F.19

At graduation, white students refused to sit by Ernest. When he walked across the stage there was an eerie silence in the stadium. He did not care. He had done something that no one else had ever done. Sitting unnoticed in the stands, observing this historic event, was a young black preacher named Martin Luther King, Jr.20

What about the lessons?

For the students and teachers of Central High School, everything was business as usual in that they studied from the same textbooks and the same lessons they would have studied from had there not been mobs and guards surrounding the building. Business as usual? I think not.

Fear, bigotry, hatred, and uncertainty permeated every day of school that year. Large numbers of the students did try to maintain decorum. Perhaps the biggest lessons were not in textbooks; they were all around the students, starting with the teachers.

Ernest describes three kinds of teachers. There were a few, like the physics teacher, who were the enemy. There were a few like Stancil, Huckaby, and Matthews, who could be trusted. But, the vast majority of the teachers were an unknown. They were indifferent. "We never felt safe in their classrooms." It was the not knowing that was maddening.21 I show a clip of this interview to my pre-service students. The message is powerful.

What is most disturbing to me is that the "event," the integration of Central High School, which is studied, universally, as a crucial part of the civil rights movement, was not mentioned. It was not an object lesson. It was as though it was not happening. Soldiers were not interviewed in classrooms. Current events were not discussed, at least not the one in which the students and teachers were the original cast. The issues certainly were never mentioned, i.e., Constitutional rights. No government official was invited for an assembly to discuss the events. About the only group of students that effectively learned a lesson about democracy that year was the black students.

One exception was a small group of girls known as the Pentangle Board. The board was composed of representatives of the service clubs. They faithfully wrote hand-written responses to letters of inquiry on the integration question that came from other states and foreign countries. They composed a rather lengthy letter that included this passage

...Central High School represents an ordinary school of our nation. Our educational

program has not been changed, and the students continue enjoying their activities

such as sports and club organizations. Although the nine Negro students are facing

a difficult situation at Central this year, they are attending regularly and progressing

in their classes.

... we ...hope that this letter will help you to form a clearer conception of our actions.

What the world needs now is a "peace that passes all understanding"; many students..

are working toward that peace....22

One scathing response was received from Heidelberg, Germany, asking for more truth and less piety in reply to the inquiry about the true situation at Central. Most replies received were, however, pleasant, and the twelve young women involved in this project learned a great deal about diplomacy and public relations.23

Opportunity Costs

As in many of life's endeavors, freedoms are not acquired without sacrifice. Bates, and her husband, had their lives threaten, their house attacked, and their business boycotted. The parents of a number of the Little Rock Nine lost their jobs. While Green went on to college in Michigan, the other eight students were taken out of state to school. By the end of the year, the NAACP, as well as local authorities, feared for their lives.

The American civil rights movement does not lack for martyrs, and the Little Rock Nine are certainly counted among them. However, many white Americans joined ranks with them, including many of the teachers at Central High, and they paid dearly because of it. Bates calls them heroes.24 Some did break under the pressure, and some were broken, but none betrayed a devotion to democracy. All served as models for their own, and other people's children.

Harry Ashmore, the editor of the Arkansas Gazette, who had repeatedly supported the cause of the NACCP and the integration forces, won a Pulitzer Prize for his editorials, but after numerous threats to his family, resigned and moved to California. Mayor Woodrow Mann, who bitterly opposed Governor Faubus' actions, left the city of his birth because of pressure from segregationists. The bomb that went off in his office was a final blow to his fight for fairness. A city-owned station wagon used by Fire Chief Gann Nalley -- parked in front of his house -- was bombed. He had been one of those who had led the dispersal of a mob in front of Central via the use of fire hoses. The police chief, Gene Smith, in whom so many had come to depend as a voice of calm in the storm, murdered his wife and committed suicide. His actions were categorized as stress related. He had been labeled a Judas and a member of the Gestapo by the segregationist leaders.25

Bill Hadley, a well-known television personality, encouraged residents to come to the support of school personnel and the Little Rock Nine, to "stand up and be counted." He lost his business and sold his home to a former governor. To survive, his family moved in with relatives in Massachusetts. With the help of friends, he got a job in Washington, DC. He only talked about the degree of his stress some thirty years later. The gun Gene Smith killed himself and his wife with, had been surrendered to him by Bill. It was the one he had bought to kill himself.26

When the school board that had supported integration was recalled and replaced by a segregationist board, their first order of business was to fire the superintendent, Virgil Blossom, who had been lauded as Little Rock's "Man of the Year" only a few months before . One teacher's apartment was bombarded with rocks through the windows to which were attached epitaphs like, "Nigger-Lovin Bitch."27 Most of the Central High teachers suffered social ostracism. Stancil tells of attending bridge club --

As I walked into the room, it became quiet. On my way to my table, I overheard a

lady say, "She's one of those integrationists. She teaches at Central High."28

She, and others, were interrogated by police, accused of being Communists, asked to list and defend daily activities and friendships, labeled in the media as civil rights supporters, were called upon to testify in court, before the school board, and in various hearings. Each occasion brought increased tension and pressure.

Her reaction, as I am sure is true of others, was mixed. It was difficult for her to see herself as anything other than a professional teacher who was doing her job. She had concerns about her own children and worried about her income as she was the sole support of her family while her husband was in pharmacy school. She recounted to me the event that was a "wake-up call."

I was standing in the kitchen washing dishes after supper and suddenly had the

urge tocry. I went into our bedroom and collapsed across the bed, my body

racked with sobs. My husband, of course, came to investigate. He insisted I get

some help. He meant get a prescription of drugs. I did not want that, but

agreed that if he saw symptoms like this again, I would.

On the way home from work in early May, 1959, she heard her name read on the radio as one of the 44 teachers who would not be rehired due to their support of integrationist activities.29

The innocent suffered as well. In the summer of 1958, Faubus closed the secondary schools in Little Rock. Teachers went to school every day in 1958-1959; the football teams played their schedules; no children attended classes. Those who qualified were allowed to enter college early and some enrolled in private schools. Those who could find a relative in another town with whom to live, boarded. Some churches opened their facilities and did the best they could. Some colleges offered correspondence courses. Most children, especially the poor and African-American ones, simply lost a year of school.