Member Of Little Rock Nine: Invest In Education, Self
Last updated Monday, February 19, 2007 8:10 PM CST in News
By Rose Ann Pearce
The Morning News
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SPRINGDALE -- Elizabeth Eckford drew applause in the auditorium at the Tyson Foods Inc. world headquarters when she urged young people in the room to get a good education.
"Education is something you own, an investment in yourself," Eckford said Monday.
She should know. She endured hallway beatings, scaldings, mob violence and armed soldiers, just to go to high school every day.
Eckford, now in her mid-60s and referring to herself as an ordinary citizen, was 15 when she and eight other black teenagers attempted to attend Central High School in Little Rock. They were called the Little Rock Nine and were among the 75 or so who applied to attend the previously all-white high school in the fall of 1957.
"We wanted an equal opportunity, not necessarily to sit next to white people," Eckford recalled. She wanted to attend Central High School for the educational opportunity to better prepare for college. She said the nine students were selected to attend Central but were the only ones left on the list after applicants dropped out of the process.
She attended Knox College in Illinois and Central State University in Ohio.
Paul Williams, a seventh-grader at McNair Middle School in Fayetteville, listened intently to Eckford's recounting of the effort to desegregate the high school. During a question and answer period, he raised his hand to ask why people were so afraid at the time.
"Some people are afraid of differences. Prejudice is taught in the home," she said.
The students never expected equal treatment at the school, she said, prompting her to refer to their efforts as desegregation of Central High School, not integration.
She arrived alone on the first day of school, only to be turned away by National Guard troops and a jeering mob. She sought safety by returning to a bus stop where she was befriended by a pair of reporters, one from the Washington Post and the other from the New York Post. The two men were later beaten while covering the story, as it unfolded in Little Rock.
Ironically, Central was not the first school to desegregate in Arkansas. Desegregation came voluntarily in Fayetteville, Charleston and Hoxie, she noted.
Fayetteville desegregated its high school in 1954 without incident during the superintendency of Virgil Blossom. Blossom then accepted the superintendency in Little Rock and was superintendent there in 1957.
Eckford said she had to convince her parents to allow her to apply to go to Central. She knew she was making progress when her mother, who she affectionately referred to as "the Queen of No," said to her, "We'll see."
The nine black students could not play in the school band or basketball team or enjoy any other extracurricular activity at the school.
"We simply could go to school," she said, noting that came at the end of September when President Dwight Eisenhower sent Army soldiers to restore peace at the high school.
"Each of us (is) responsible for the kind of community we have," she said. "There is a price to pay for silence. Silence gives consent to the bullies or consent to the people making the noise."
Her message included advice for students in the audience.
"You can do extraordinary things when you're in extraordinary circumstances," she said.
The program was part of Tyson's recognition of Black History Month.
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Shes a Heroe wrote on Feb 20, 2007 4:50 PM: