The Little Rock Nine were the first nine Black students to integrate Little Rock Central High School, in 1957, three years after Brown v. Board passed, ending school segregation. You might be asking yourself, why did it take three years from Brown v. Board, till the school in Arkansas desegregated? The answer is simple: the governor, Orval Faubus, was a racist a-hole, who just decided, "Nah, the rules don't apply to me," (not a direct quote.) He opted not to comply with the law of the land. Just because he could. The president had to get involved and sent the National Guard to force Faubus to integrate the schools. How humiliating is that that our own, pretty much great grandparents, in this time era, were like this?
The above pictures are two of the most iconic shots from documenting the school's integration. The young woman in the front, is Elizabeth Eckford, who was harassed and tortured not only in this picture, but the entire time she went to school. Behind her, the main woman screaming, is Hazel Bryan Massery, who was 15 years old at the time. She is still alive and well today, though apparently has had a change of heart since then.
I did some researching, because I wanted to know some of the other white people in the shots, but as we are really good at doing, we managed to cover up a lot of the shameful situation by not bothering to get names. The perpetrators and the people who knew them are the ones who will have to fess up to it, and most of them have remained silent.
I did find a couple names, though. The young woman next to Hazel, the one in the dark dress, with the notebook, is Sammie Dean Parker, who was apparently an absolute terror at the school. Top level racist school bully. Her parents had the caucasity to try to sue the school district after she was suspended for her harassment. She was the absolute worst. I found no information online of her ever having a change of heart, or anything about her after this time, so who knows what became of her.
And the blonde woman in the second picture, in the light dress, holding the books in her arms, might very well be this woman. Please note, I have no actual proof of this, this is merely based on looking at the two photographs and reading the confirmation in the article about having gone to the school. But if they are the same, it's interesting to note how it was remembered so differently from what the photos of the day portray.
I tried to find information on the stockery-looking woman on Elizabeth's other side but found nothing on her. She looks like an adult, and appears to want to strangle her. I wish we had cared enough then to get these people's names. We should remember them. Many of these are our grandparents' ages now. Ms. Eckford is still alive.
The Little Rock Nine is another example of white people trying to get out of our racism and history by saying it's better to only acknowledge the true heroes, the Black students who integrated the school. They do deserve all the credit and kudos, of course, but it's also a convenient way to keep future generations not thinking about the people doing the bullying, so I say we need to remember the screamers and taunters who chanted "2, 4, 6, 8, We don't want to integrate" and bullied the students in the school. Their names and faces deserve all the shame.
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