Dignity amidst indignity

I read a book today (I believe it was called Warriors Don't Cry) by one of the girls in the "Little Rock Nine," the first black students to attend the integrated high school in Arkansas in 1957. It was amazing to read details about her year at that school. Naturally I had seen the pictures of the Army escorting the black students in, to protect them from the angry mobs outside, but I had always wondered what happened to them after that.

It was horrible. I started the book feeling fairly detached, mainly just interested in the history of it, but it ended up making me cry. I couldn't believe the treatment this girl (her name was Melba) had to endure---and she could never do anything remotely construable as "retaliation" since the school board was looking for any excuse to get rid of them. The first day they were brought to school, people---mothers!---kept breaking through the guards trying to attack them. Melba was knocked down, punched, kicked, etc. by adults who were determined to get the black kids out of "their kids'" school. The Arkansas police had no motivation to do any actual protection, so later that day the mob got control and stormed the school. Melba heard the school officials saying "We're going to have to give them one of the kids to appease them, let them have their hanging, so we can get the others out of here!" The nine of them were finally rushed out of the school by a back exit, just in time to save their lives.

Can you believe it? It seems completely unreal to me. I mean, people willing to kill over it? To hang a high school kid? (Of course, it's not like I'd never heard about this stuff before, but somehow reading it from her point of view was a lot more personal.) And the rest of the year was no better. Melba had acid thrown in her eyes (damaging them permanently), she was locked in a bathroom stall and girls threw burning papers over the edge at her, she had death threats, she was beaten up nearly every day, and she just had to endure it. For part of the year she had a soldier escort, but he wasn't allowed to intervene unless there was actual danger to her life. And when the soldiers weren't there, no other adult would intervene either.

Much of the persecution from other students was coordinated, evidently. They had meetings where they would plan how to attack the black students, and they had psychologists advising them on the best ways to torment them and encourage a "reaction" out of the black kids (which in turn could justify getting the black kids expelled). I just can't get over that there were groups of mothers---normal, nice-seeming mothers most of the time, I'm sure---who were screaming and rioting and yelling death threats. I suppose it's a testament to the power of a "mob mentality" (I think I wrote a paper on that once).

Another thing I didn't know was that the next year, the Arkansas governer CLOSED ALL THE HIGH SCHOOLS in the district rather than integrate. The whole school year was cancelled. The white kids went to private schools or drove far away to other schools, and Melba and her friends were sent away to sympathetic families in other states, to finish their high school education.

After I finished the book I just kept wondering how high school students could be so cruel to other high school students. Well, of course they learned it from their parents. And the social pressure at the time was unimaginable, I'm sure, so maybe it is expecting too much to think a high school kid, still insecure about his or her own self-image, and still unsure of his or her own place in life, could stand up to that. But still, kids that age do have minds of their own. Some, though not many, dared to be nicer to the black kids. So it was possible. I guess many of the kids really thought that black people were like animals, without real feelings. Even then, though. They could SEE they weren't animals; they were attending the same classes, eating in the same lunchroom, etc. So how did they justify it to themselves? I know kids can be mean. But I never saw any, in my high school anyway, be THAT mean. In addition to all the (terrible) physical abuse Melba endured, there was the constant emotional strain of it. To have everyone hate you like that! Really hate you, want you dead! I can't even imagine it. She said she just had to believe that God would protect her, and I'm sure He did, but I think she must have wondered often if she'd make it through alive. Of course she was a hero to many people, and she received many awards for bravery, etc. later. But I can't imagine that any of that was much comfort to her at the time!

I don't know if I really came to any conclusions about all this yet. I've just been mulling it over in my mind. I guess I'm glad not to have seen that level of hate in people. (Although I'm sure it still exists.) I'm glad that although many people's high school experience is difficult---emotionally scarring, even---it is usually endurable. I'm glad this girl, Melba, grew up to have a good life, with people all over that love her and respect her. I hope those kids who went to school with her eventually figured out how to be nicer and braver and more humble. And mostly, I hope I can teach my kids to hold their own opinions while still being open to the fact that they might be wrong, and while still being nice to those that disagree with them. Can I help them show that kind of character? And could they be strong enough to act that way even in an environment where everyone else, even the adults, refused to show the same kind of respect back to them? (I wonder if they will ever face such a situation?) I don't know. I'm sure it would be hard. But I hope so.