Members of the little rock nine recall their experience, joined by robert paul walker, author of remember little rock, the times, the people, the stories. 2009 at recorded in Little Rock Central High School. Now a National Historic site. I have to tell you it is such an honor to be sitting here signing my book at the table. When i started my journey as a professional writer in 1984, i could never imagined that id be signing books with two recipients of the congressional gold medal, the highest civilian honor in the united states, and i am humbled to be here. But im also proud to be here, to be with them. This book, its an interesting book because National Geographic has a series called remember, and the whole idea is to tell stories as much as possible through eyewitness accounts and through contemporary photographs. Now, the first two books that i wrote in this series were called remember little big horn, and remember the alamo. Now, how i became the expert on eyewitness accounts of battles where everybody died i dont know, but [laughter] but as the curator at the alamo said, everybodys got to have a niche. Also ive written a lot of history, and this is the first book ive ever written where lots of people were still alive. And that was a wonderful, wonderful experience because i got to interview, i got to be good friends with Terrence Roberts who wrote the introduction to the book and served as my mentor to make sure that i had it right. And the manuscript was actually read by four others of the little rock nine, carlotta read it, minnie jean, i interviewed her for many hours, and that was really fine, and gloria and i wrote emails back and forth to sweden and back, and she was very, very helpful with many things. She sent me a pdf of a note that was left on her desk, and its in the book. First time its ever been published. Remember the famous one of, what was it, one down eight to go . This one was get gloria ray out of the way. And i had never seen that, and im honored to be the first person to be able to publish that. So being close with some of the little rock nine was wonderful. I also got to be close with a number of the white students including particularly the handful of white students who really laid their own lives on the line to support the little rock nine. And id like to honor one of them who happens to be here today. Whats your name . No. [laughter] robin, robin woods louck who is on the back cover with a wonderful quote, and she befriended terrence in math class and shared her book with him and suffered a lot for it. She and her husband harry have become great friends, and i have to tell you a little story. Terrence told me about robin and said you ought to interview robin. So i said im coming back out to little rock to do more research, and id like to interview you. And she said, why dont you just stay with us. Id never met this woman, and she invited me to stay in her home, and she said a friend of terry is a friend of mine. And ive become very Close Friends with robin and harry, and im here at the chateau again, which is really fun. [laughter] so the experience of being able to work with people who were part of the story was, was a remarkable experience because, of course, i cant interviewday i have crockett, you know, i cant interview sitting bull. They were interviewed, and that is what i used. Now, there is another side of this. Ive worked with some people who, you know, they had issues with the way i use their quotes and the way i introduce their quotes. There was a moment when i thought, im going to just keep working with dead people because Davy Crockett cant say i dont like the way you used my quote. [laughter] i try to be as honest as i can be, and its kind of a balancing act when youre working with people who have lived it, right . Because you have to try to get the truth right, but you dont want to hurt anybodys feeling. You know, you just have to walk a fine line, and you also have to try to tell the Bigger Picture the best you can. It was an amazing experience, and actually having come back to little rock and seeing how many friends i have here, i think im going to keep writing about live people. [laughter] thank you. [applause] okay. All right. Well, i thank you, laura, and all the staff here at Little Rock Central High SchoolHistoric Site for putting this event together today. Weve talked about this over a period of time and just kind of wonderful that it has finally happened. You know, this story is about my high school days, and its not about the first integration that took place in the south. It is, however, about a School Integration which found its way repeatedly in the national spotlight. It was a showdown between states rights and federal law, between the arkansas governor and president dwight d. Eisenhower of the united states. Between nine kids who wanted to go to school but had to be accompanied by 1200 soldiers to escort them inside the school. That really became the second largest headline in 1957. The first being sputnik and then president eisenhowers biggest domestic crisis that took place during his presidency. And what id like to do is a little bit different. And maybe not. But i want to just read to you a couple of pages in my book. I took something from the prologue, and i also took a piece from classifying the groups of kids that i encountered at Little Rock Central High School once i got inside. And then finally, a few pages that will introduce the most horrific night of my life, the night my home was bombed in my senior year. And according to the local daily arkansas gazette, i was the first integrating student in the country to have her home bombed. Few people my age will have more than one good friend from high school. Im grateful to have at least eight. Ernie, melba, minnie jean, elizabeth, gloria, terry, jefferson and selma. In the public mind, we are one, the little rock nine. But we are, in essence, nine distinct personalities with nine different stories. It is as much a story about the dedication of family, perseverance and sacrifice as it is about the journey and the history. It is my, it is a salute to my parents who stayed silently in the background and swallowed great risk and suffering. They were the ones who had ingrained in me the quiet confidence that jim crow be damned, i was not a secondclass citizen. It was that confidence that told me i deserved the quality education the Supreme Court said i was due. The confidence that steadied my feet to defy the racists with my mere presence at school every single day. My participants be parents bequeathed to me the confidence of their fathers, both hard working black entrepreneurs in control of their own economic lives. My family may have seemed unlikely candidates for involvement in a movement that would spark nationwide change, but then again, that is the point of this book to show that determination, fortitude and the ability to move the world arent reserved for the special people. Sometimes ive thought about how much easier survival would have been if more people had taken a chance, a stand. As i saw it, the students at central fell into different categories. The Smallest Group was the easiest to identify, those students who were determined to make our lives miserable. The tormenters, the black leather boys, their female cohorts and the other cowardly students who clung to their groups in their evil efforts to push us out. They were the ones who called us derisive names, spat on us, slammed us into lockers and down the stairs. Maybe it was their parents who helped to make up the segregationist crowds that clung to the wrongheaded belief that central somehow belonged to them and that the nine of us were the interlopers causing trouble by having the audacity to keep showing up. The second group included those students who were clearly sympathetic even if they did not outwardly show it or jump to our defense in times of trouble. You could tell by the kind eyes that on our worst days seemed to say, im really sorry this is happening to you. Sometimes they offered a shy smile in the hallways or in class or slipped a quiet note of support to one of us undercover. The majority of the students at central fell into the third group, those who kept sigh eleven. Silent. They wanted all the trouble to end. They did not torment us, but they didnt extend themselves to us in any way either, not even quietly. They did not want to be associated with one side or the other. They chose to remain neutral. As if remaining neutral in the face of evil were an acceptable and just choice. They turned away. They rendered us invisible. Theyre most likely the ones today who when asked about the class of 1957 try to reinvent history. Things at central werent as bad as the nine of us have said, they have recalled in recent years. The mobs werent as big, they say, the bad guys and gals werent as bad, and the atmosphere wasnt as tense. But, of course, that is how they remember the central journey, these 50plus years later. When i was suffering in those hallowed halls, they turned away, they did nothing. They said nothing. They chose not to see. There was another group, a small group for sure, but in my mind the bravest of all, those teachers and students who at times were openly kind, who seemed to look beyond skin color and see nine students eager to learn, eager to be part of a great academic institution. Youd think i would, i had it all here. [laughter] when i made it to my bedroom the night of february 9, 1960, it was raining mud. At least thats how it appeared to me when i heard heavy rain and wind slapping against the house. I looked up at the window and saw thick droplets of rain mixed with red dirt sliding down the window panes. It was about 9 30, my favorite time of the night. I savored those moments of solace before bedtime when i got to unwind, listen to the radio and think. The house was quiet, daddy hadnt come in yet from his nighttime job at big daddys place. My sisters, then 11 and 4, were asleep in their room a few steps up the hall, and mother was in her and daddys room near the front door. I clicked on the clock radio resting on the night stand. The am dial was already tuned to one of my favorite stations, wlac, which broadcast nightly from nashville. It was one of a few white stations that brought the soulful sounds of black rock and roll, rhythm and blues and jazz artists. The platters, little richard, fats domino and etta james, to places they had never been before, the homes and lives of my white peers throughout the nation. It tickled me when i imagined maybe some of my white classmates at central were listening secretly too. [laughter] i particularly enjoyed a program called randys record highlights which aired shortly after 10 00. As i changed into my pajamas, my mind felt at ease. I had made it to the home stretch at central, i thought. For weeks things had been calm, no protesters or major incidents, and graduation was less than four months ago. I had finally stopped sulking after the rejection from antioch and decided on a college. My decisionmaking process had been quite simple i accepted the first school that wrote to me with good news after the big letdown, and that school was michigan state. Michigan state wanted me right then, and i was eager to be wanted. After such disappointment i had been in no mood to wait to hear from my second and third choices. By the time the acceptance letters came from brandeis and the university of california, i had already settled on going to michigan state. I was even starting to get excited. I liked the idea of getting lost among the thousands of students on campus. Id get to come and go as i pleased, and no one would even notice. Finally, i would have a normal life. Concerts, football games, maybe even a boyfriend. Id missed out on so much at central. I could hardly wait to end this chapter of my life and start anew, but for the moment it was bedtime. I clicked off the light in my room, crawled into bed with my thoughts and let etta and fats serenade me to sleep. No sooner had i closed my eyes, it seemed, than i was shaken by a thunderous boom. The house shook, and i could hear glass crashing to the floor in the front of the house. I sat up quickly with my hands gripping the sides of my bed as if to steady the room. For a moment i felt frozen in place. My eyes wide with fear darted around the pitch black room. What was that . Was i dreaming . The explosion had come from the front. Then, oh, my god, my little sisters, mother. I had to find them. I leaped out of bed. As soon as my bare feet landed on the cold floor, i took off running through my bedroom. My first stop was the den just outside my bedroom door. It was eerily dark and still. I turned toward the hall and ran up to the front of the house. I was halfway up the front of the house when i saw my sisters in their nightgowns with mother in her bedroom door at the other end of the hall. When i reached them, mother and the girls looked dazed and bewildered, but unhurt. We stared at one another too shaken to even speak. Little tinas eyes moved quickly from mother to me searching our faces for clues. A haze of smoke floated through the darkness from the living room to the hallway where we stood. The smoke hurt my eyes, and an unfamiliar scent filled the air. It smelled as if something had blown up in a chemistry lab. Inside i was trembling. I felt helpless and horrified, and i needed daddy. He would tell me everything would be okay and make me feel safe. But he must have been working late. It was 11 00, and he hadnt yet made it home. I suddenly felt a painful sense of responsibility as though i needed to step up and somehow make the situation right. But i didnt know how. I could feel real panic rising in my throat. I had the odd thought that carlotta who always fell to her hard work and smarts would make everything okay, who had believed anything was possible if she stayed strong, she was now at a total loss. The sound of my mothers voice quelled my panic. She was calm and restrained, but i heard the helplessness too. Call your daddy, she said. I do hope that you guys that are here today will purchase the book, be able to discuss it with others, share it, learn something from it, and thank you for being here. [applause] thank you very much, indeed. You know, this process of writing a book is allconsuming. Ive worked on it for many years actually. Someone asked me recently, why are you releasing it now as if i had anything to do with when the publishers would accept it, when they would release it. [laughter] i talked to my sister about it at one point during the process, and she said, listen, back off. Its not about you setting the timetable. When the book is ready, it will present itself to the public. I believed her, and just dutifully got into the process of doing it. It was a gutwrenching process at times, as i explained to some people earlier. One of the reasons for the delay was the bumping into the emotional debris, the kind of stuff you pick up when you go through an experience like the one we had at central high school. Theres a tendency to collect a lot of stuff, and you take it with you down through the years. Its necessary to whisk that stuff away. Writing a book was, in part, a bit of whisking it away. But now that its in print, i can get on with life and do other things. [laughter] im glad that were here tonight because we have a chance to talk together about some of the questions you might have for us as writers, about some of the things you may have wondered about that went on at central high school, and we can have a chance to interact. One of the things that i like about this kind of gathering is that we do have a chance to relate to each other. Im firmly convinced that relationship is the key to resolving all of our problems. I spoke to a reporter today, and he was asking, well, what are regoing to do about the state were in . I said, were going to have to learn to say hello to each other and mean it. Build strong diads, and from that they become the Building Blocks for community, for nation, for a society, eventually a universe if you believe in that. I dream about that at times. Its the kind of dream that is soothing and helps me sleep. I cant have that dream after i watch cnn. [laughter] if i go to sleep right after that, the dreams are a little different, you know . I keep seeing this guy, whats his face from alabama, sessions. [laughter] you know how you can determine whats going on inside the skull of a person just by the verbage that spills out of his or her mouth . I get that. Sometimes i worry about my ability to discern that stuff because it causes me to have murderous thoughts, and im basically a peaceful person. [laughter] i dont want to hurt anybody. Never have. The rest of that is never will, but i cant say that. [laughter] but in any case, i am, indeed, glad that we have this opportunity, and i look forward to interacting with several of you as you come to have your books signed. Thank you. [applause] okay. Does anybody have questions . Anyone . Anyone . Maam. [inaudible] pay attention. [inaudible] im a social worker, and i see in your background, that you trained as a social worker, and, of course, i love social work, and i think theres a reason we come to social work. So i would just be curious if you could Say Something about whether your background led you in that direction, and then i wonder, why did you leave and go into psychology . [laughter] thats a good question. I think i had this notion that as a person interested in resolving social problems, i could do it best from some professional standpoint. I was disappointed with my fellow social workers because that particular crowd this is not to say that all social workers are like this but they seemed to be more interested in doing psychotherapy. And they wanted to go out and earn great sums of money. That was not my goal. But i figured this psychotherapy stuff looks interesting, why dont i check it out . That is how i got into psychology. I thought, if im going to do psychotherapy, i might as well understand it, you know, from that point. But then i discovered that psychologists are, indeed, crazy people. [laughter] i mean, it was just overwhelming. Fortunately, i had the social work background, so i survived. [laughter] thank you. Anyone else . It doesnt work. I am a student at central now, and im a class where we have been talking about pretty much the everyday stories that we hear all the time. And we were sitting in class, and its not that we thought we were getting tired of it, it was like we want to know more. And my question was even though all this stuff was going on, did you still feel like a regular student who had all this homework to do and were worried that you were going to pass the test that you had to take or anything . Oh, yeah. But we never worried about that stuff. I think, is that true, carlotta . You never worried about takin