Pitzer in the News 2007-2007 Academic Year

50 years later: Remembering Little Rock Nine
Wendy Leung, Staff Writer
San Bernardino County Sun/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
September 21, 2007

The photos of the nine black students, with their freshly pressed clothes and defiant gait, have become iconic.

The images, taken a half-century ago, show the students' courage when in September 1957 they entered the all-white Little Rock Central High School.

Also apparent in the photos, taken as the country experienced its first years of desegregation, are looks of hate from those opposed to their attending classes at the school.

Next week marks the 50th anniversary of the Little Rock Nine entering the school, escorted by federal troops through angry, taunting crowds.

Many scholars - including some of the nine - see only marginal improvement in race relations and equal access to quality education.

"We made some safe surface changes, but we haven't improved very much at all," said Terrence Roberts, one of the nine, speaking by telephone before his trip to Arkansas for the anniversary.

Roberts, who teaches at Antioch University in Los Angeles, continues to speak throughout the world about his experiences at Central High and the psychology of racism today.

A speaking engagement brought him to Panama.

"A teacher there talked about Little Rock and the students told her she was lying," Roberts said. "I took off there to present the real story."

He spoke to hundreds of Los Osos High School students in Rancho Cucamonga last year about his junior year at Central High where insults and death threats were common.

Carlotta LaNier, who was 14 when she set foot in Central High with Roberts and the others, wasn't always open about her painful experiences.

The Colorado resident, who is now a public speaker, said it was around the time of the 30th anniversary when she realized young people needed to know about that crucial time in history.

"At the time my children were young, of middle school and elementary age, and I had not really talked about my experiences," LaNier said. "They didn't know a whole lot about it."

She said a lot of young people in her audiences are often angry at what took place, and are upset for not being taught about desegregation.

One of LaNier's most memorable speaking engagements was to a group of previously incarcerated young people.

"A few of them said they were so moved that they were going to turn their lives around," she said. "Let me tell you, that was worth it."

LaNier will mark the anniversary with Roberts and their seven former classmates this week in Little Rock, where fear and panic were once part of their high school routine.

A new visitor center will be unveiled adjacent to the school. Commemorative festivities will include a series of speeches, fundraisers and a church service.

"It's sort of ironic we celebrate Little Rock at the same time we have the Jena Six," said Mary Texeira, who teaches courses on race relations at Cal State San Bernardino. "We do need to celebrate Little Rock, but we can't say we don't have any work to do, because we do."

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Jena, La., on Thursday to protest what they said was the unfairly harsh prosecution of six black teenagers who allegedly assaulted a white classmate.

Texeira said racism today looks different than it did 50 years ago when the National Guard blocked the nine students.

But modern-day racism exists in the form of No Child Left Behind and a Supreme Court that is "turning back the clock," Texeira said.

Some experts fear that the Supreme Court ruling in June that curtailed the use of race in school admissions programs will further segregate schools already racially divided.

"There was never meaningful integration in the first place," said Halford Fairchild, a professor of black studies at Pitzer College in Claremont. "(The Supreme Court decision) just reaffirms the status quo in structured inequality. It just means that whatever hope we have for progress is not tempered by the political reality."

LaNier said she doesn't see a lot of people up in arms over the Supreme Court decision.

"When you take two steps forward, there's a chance you're going to go backwards," she said.

LaNier said racial intolerance is bound to happen when there is a segregated public school system that doesn't resemble the global community.

"There's not a baby born racist. They learn that," she said. "And spending time growing up together in a school system that embraces all people, then it becomes second nature to get along with people."