Reconsidering Little Rock: Desegregation Pioneers
Look Back on Start of School Integration 50 Years Ago

Ioana Patringenaru | November 19, 2007

Central High students (c.1957-58). From left: Elizabeth Eckford, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls, Minnijean Brown and Melba Pattillo.

Fifty years ago, it took about 1,000 soldiers to get Terrence Roberts and eight other students to school. A convoy of Jeeps, sirens blaring, drove them to Central High, in Little Rock, Ark. Then soldiers escorted the Little Rock Nine to class.

Roberts, age 15 at the time, became one of the central figures in the fight for desegregation. Last week, he described these tumultuous times during a three-day event at UCSD, titled “Reconsidering Little Rock: 50 Years After the Start of School Integration.” Julian Bond, the current NAACP chairman, then placed Roberts’ experience in prospective by taking his audience on a tour of the civil rights movement. 

“This was a people’s movement,” Bond said. “It saw evil and brought it down.”

The goal of the three-day celebration was to examine how much has changed in the way society deals with issues of social justice, including race, said Ed Spriggs, associate vice chancellor of Student Affairs. Thurgood Marshall Provost Allan Havis and Earl Warren Provost Steven Adler said they also wanted to recognize Marshall and Warren’s contributions to the civil rights movement and the fight to desegregate American schools. “We felt it was essential to bring keynote speakers of national importance,” Adler said.

Julian Bond and Terrence Roberts

Reconsidering
Little Rock on UCSD-TV
UCSD-TV will broadcast Roberts
and Bond's speeches in December.

Click here for a
schedule of Roberts' speech.

Click here for a
schedule of Bond's speech.

So, on Nov. 13, Roberts took his audience back to Arkansas as it was in the 1940s and 1950s. At that time, the cards were stacked against black people since birth, he pointed out. His birth announcement ran in the Arkansas Gazette in 1941. In about half of the listings that day, “Mr.” and “Mrs.” preceded the name of the baby’s parents. What about the other half? Was it a mistake? No, Roberts explained. “Black parents didn’t merit these titles because it would put them on equal footing with white parents,” he said. “And that was not to be.”

He recalled that during his childhood in Little Rock, the message he got was that he didn’t count for much; he had no rights; and he shouldn’t be involved in politics. To him, this all seemed crazy. But he soon learned that it was a widespread point of view. He turned to education to cope with this madness, he said.

“We wanted to learn as much as possible,” Roberts explained. “We saw it as our way out of this dilemma.”

As a child, he loved learning so much that he didn’t understand why schools were closed on weekends. The teachers at his segregated school greatly enhanced his education, he said. “They decided to make sure that we, the students, could learn as much about education as we could,” Roberts said. One of his teachers told him he needed to become the C.E.O. of his own educational enterprise. Roberts took the advice to heart. “I was a proud nerd,” he said.

Oct. 7, 1957 issue of TIME

Before Roberts started 10th grade, the Little Rock school board decided to desegregate its high schools. Trustees toured black schools to recruit volunteers for their plan. About 150 students signed up. That number then dwindled down to just nine. Roberts was one of them.

On the first day of school in 1957, National Guard troops, called by Arkansas’ governor, kept Roberts out of Central High. Later, he entered the school under the protection of the Little Rock police. But protestors overwhelmed officers and Roberts and his fellow students had to escape through an underground garage.

Finally, President Dwight D. Eisenhower dispatched the 101st Airborne Division to take the Little Rock Nine to school. Soldiers marched at their side to get them into Central High. Two soldiers stood guard at each classroom door.

Roberts’ high school experience didn’t get any better after that first day. Each of the Little Rock Nine had their own personal bully. Roberts’ was one Jerry Tully, who followed him everywhere, kicking, biting, pushing and scratching along the way. One day during a physical education class, a coach confronted Tully, calling him a coward. He said students who had a problem with Roberts should challenge him face to face. About 50 to 60 white boys lined up immediately in the school’s gym to do just that. Tully was first in line. “The non-verbal message was ‘we are going to kill you’,” Roberts recalls.

Terrence Roberts visits the Reconsidering Little Rock exhibit at the Geisel Library.

But Roberts was able to get Tully down in a head lock. Then the coach broke up the fight and sent both boys outside. Now Roberts found himself facing a large white student holding a bat. A stare-down ensued. Finally, the white student used a racial epithet and said “if you weren’t so small…” He dropped his bat and walked away. The incident gave Roberts pause. It also gave him hope. That student couldn’t bring himself to take advantage of a smaller human being in spite of his racism, Roberts said. That incident is only one of many, he added.

Still, he stayed at Central High. “I was eager for change,” he explained. His parents stood by him and did their best to protect him. His mother used to burn hate mail, he recalled. “I told her: ‘Mom, you can’t burn the hate mail, it has historical value’,” he said. His mother told him in no uncertain terms what she thought about these so-called historical documents. But it took her two decades to tell Roberts how much his experience at Central High had affected her.

Looking back, Roberts said he has learned many lessons from Little Rock. For example, you can live with your fears, no matter how strong. “Fear is portable,” he told the audience. “You put it in your pocket and move on.”

Bottom, left to right: Thelma Mothershed, Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Gloria Ray. Top, left to right: Jefferson Thomas, Melba Pattillo, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls, Daisy Bates (Ark. NAACP president) and Ernest Green.

The Little Rock Nine served as an example and brought hope, said Bond, the chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. They joined many others who fought for equality and civil rights in America — a fight that continues to this day, he said. “I believe in an integrated America. I spent most of my life in its pursuit,” Bond said. “But the quest for equality remains unfulfilled,” he later added.

Bond also said he believes civil rights are in retreat today. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered schools to desegregate in Brown vs. Board of Education. But this year, the Supreme Court, now with a different cast of justices, struck down two school assignment plans in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle, Wash., that were based explicitly on race, Bond pointed out. He then blasted the justices for their decision. “There are no non-racial remedies to discrimination,” he said.  

Bond also delivered an indictment of the Bush administration, especially in its handling of Hurricane Katrina. That crisis highlighted the race and class divide that still exists in the United States, he said.

The problem, Bond concluded, is that racial inequity is embedded in the fabric of American society and that inequities have been compounding for centuries. He prescribed affirmative action, litigation, voting and activism as remedies. Meanwhile, Roberts said he doesn’t believe race relations will change dramatically in his lifetime. “But that doesn’t mean you give up the fight, you see,” he added.

A note on the Geisel Library's guestbook signed by Roberts.

Also during the event, several UCSD professors took a look at how far we’ve come since the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision. The three-day symposium ended with a special dramatic program, including a short screening from PBS’s “Eyes on the Prize” documentary, narrated by Bond.

Audience members and officials said they enjoyed the talks. San Diego City Councilman Tony Young thanked the university for providing information about a defining moment in the nation’s history and connecting it to today’s issues.

“UCSD should be commended for this,” Young said.

“Reconsidering Little Rock” was sponsored by the California Western School of Law; the Helen Edison Lecture Series; Chancellor Marye Anne Fox; Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Penny Rue; the UCSD Libraries; the Office of Research; the Office of Graduate Studies; the Division of Social Sciences; the Division of Arts and Humanities; the Council of Provosts; the African American Studies Minor at Thurgood Marshall College; the Department of Theatre and Dance and the Law and Society Program at Warren College.