Reliving ‘The Lost Year’

Year after Central High’s 1957 crisis often overlooked

Some make history, some watch history being made and some inadvertently go down in history. The past stays with us only because someone bothered to write it down. They recorded who, what, where, how, when and possibly even wagered a guess at why we humans did what we did once upon a time.

History-making events tend to touch a lot of people. In my case, at age 15 I was becoming aware of two new (to me) vocabulary words, “segregation” and “integration.” I was also learning there were adjectives expressing anger, violence, hatred, threat and danger attached to those two words.

In 1957, Little Rock made international news when all-white Central High School was ordered to integrate nine Black students who had registered to attend school. After mobs threatened the Black students, as well as teachers and administrators, Gov. Orval Faubus called out the Arkansas National Guard to prevent those nine from entering Central. From there, things went from bad to worse. By late September, after Faubus withdrew the Guard and left local police in charge, rioting worsened. President Dwight D. Eisenhower then ordered 1,000 troops of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division to be stationed at the school to maintain order and ensure the “Little Rock Nine” could safely attend classes.

At the end of the 1957-58 school-year-fromhell for the Black students, who were physically, verbally and emotionally taunted, bullied, spit on and abused by segregationist students, no one knew what the next school year would bring. As four high schools in Little Rock prepared to open, Faubus declared opening was too dangerous and closed all four. I was slated to attend Hall High, but after six weeks of waiting and wondering when it would reopen, my parents decided to take me to live at my grandmother’s, and I entered the 10th grade in Magnolia.

The 1958-59 school year, known as “The Lost Year,” would possibly be lost history had a few people not written books and articles about the period. A by Sandy Hubbard and associated website records some interviews and stories of the school closure consequences on 3,700 students, stories that are not widely unknown.

My parents always said, “What goes around, comes around.” Now, 67 years after those nine extraordinarily brave and determined Black kids endured trauma that changed history, the Little Rock story has come around in my life again.

My 11-year-old granddaughter’s fifth grade class has been reading the youth novel “The Lions of Little Rock” by Kristin Levine. The two main fictional characters are a white girl, who rarely speaks, and a girl who’s new at school and “passing” for white. The story of their friendship and what really matters to each of them is wrapped in the history of what racism does to lives.

When my granddaughter’s teacher learned I had tried to enter high school during “the lost year,” the time frame of the novel, she asked me to speak to her class. Those fifth graders got straight to the point. Did you have any Black friends? Did you know anyone who passed for white? Have you ever seen people in the KKK? What main memory do you have of Little Rock? What do you say to people who hold up signs? Are you a segregationist or integrationist? Were kids back then for or against integration?

I told them segregation, to me, means isolating people or groups from one another and integration means people choosing to be around different types of people. And I told them the only thing I think people should judge others on is how we treat each other. Perhaps our current governor would think discussing my personal history is a form of “indoctrination that teaches children to hate America.” But I think she’s flat wrong. What makes hate is fear and feeling lower than someone else, not an admission that recorded history actually happened.

A lawsuit has recently been filed by some Central High students, their parents and a history teacher, Ruthie Walls, against Gov. Sarah Sanders and the state’s education secretary. The case centers around the removal of Walls’ Advanced Placement African American Studies course from qualifying toward graduation credits.

It’s been 67 years since nine kids opened the world’s eyes and the doors of Central, their high school, to a world view. The thick irony of all this should not be lost on any of us.