Little Rock Nine
Eight of the Little Rock Nine will take part in various activities for the 60th anniversary of the desegregation of Central High School. Events run through Monday.
Melba Pattillo Beals, 75, a journalist, lives in California. She wrote a memoir, Warriors Don’t Cry, becoming the first of the Little Rock Nine to write about her experiences at Central High in 1957.
Carlotta Walls LaNier, 74, real estate broker, lives in Colorado. She was the youngest of the nine students to integrate the school. LaNier is president of the Little Rock Nine Foundation.
Elizabeth Eckford, 75, retired probation officer and teacher, lives in Little Rock. She is in the iconic photo showing whites taunting her in front of the school in 1957.
Ernest Green, 75, worked for President Jimmy Carter as an assistant secretary of labor and for Lehman Brothers. He was the first black graduate of Central. For years, he was the most public face of the Little Rock Nine, granting interviews to the media. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Gloria Ray Karlmark, 74, a systems analyst, mathematician and writer, lives in Amsterdam. When the high schools closed in Little Rock, Karlmark moved to Kansas City, where she graduated in 1960 from the newly integrated Kansas City Central High School.
Jefferson Thomas, 67, worked in accounting for the federal government. He retired in September 2004 after 27 years of federal service and lived in Columbus, Ohio. He died in 2010.
Minnijean Brown Trickey, 76, is an activist and environmentalist who lives in Canada. She moved there with her children and former husband after he got drafted. One child, Spirit Trickey, used to be a park ranger at the Little Rock Central High National Historic site.
Terrence Roberts, 75, a consultant and psychologist, lives in California. He also worked at several universities as a professor and as an administrator.
Thelma Mothershed Wair, 76, a retired teacher who worked for decades in East St. Louis, a city in southern Illinois with a large number of underprivileged children, lives in Little Rock.