The First Twenty-Five: An Oral History of the Desegregation of Little Rock’s Public Junior High Schools

Work.

I

Overview

INTRODUCTION

On May 23, 1961, the Little Rock School Board designated twenty-five students to be the first African Americans (then called Negroes or Coloreds) to attend four of the five public Little Rock junior high schools. By the first day of school, September 5, 1961, one of those students had submitted a request to be transferred to Dunbar Junior High School, the all–African American public school. The fifth junior high school was desegregated during the 1962–1963 school year. The purpose of this book is to allow the stories of those courageus students who desegregated East Side, Forest Heights, Pulaski Heights, Southwest, and West Side Junior High Schools to be heard in their own way and from their perspectives.

Much has been written about the historical desegregation of Little Rock Central High School by nine African Americans. History has been silent, however, about the desegregation of the five all-White junior high schools. Newspaper articles and research through literature, court records, reviews of the records of Little Rock School Board meetings, and an interview from a civil rights activist of that time will allow us to explore the reason desegregation of the junior high schools occured when it did, and in that manner.

This book consists of a portion of the oral histories of those first students who were successfully located during this project. This oral history approach provides them with something they did not have in 1961 and 1962: the opportunity to break the silence. It will serve as a platform for them to share their perspectives of what it was like to enter places no other African Americans or Negroes, the term commonly used at that time, had previously entered. To that end, this book will largely relate the junior high school experiences of these students, as told by them. Telling their story through their own lens affords them the opportunity to share their perspectives of what they saw, heard, and felt. These recorded interviews provide information about what these former students believe helped them move successfully through that academic time in their lives. They will also describe the extent to which the desegregation experience influenced their personal and professional lives over time.

The author. I, the author, am also one of the participants/former students. I was interviewed by one of the contributors to this book to tell my story in a manner that separated me from my regular role as researcher. For that very reason, the contributor also interviewed my sister, who desegregated one of the other junior high schools. Efforts were made to maintain as much neutrality as possible during the interview process to allow each interviewee to tell their stories in their own way.

I used a research approach that examines how the student participants, their families, and their community were influenced by school desegregation. We also considered how the students who desegregated the schools coped or dealt with this potentially stressful situation that they encountered on a daily basis. Please refer to appendix 1 for more information about the research methods used in this book.

I am a social worker, not a historian. This is important for readers to know because historians will have much more knowledge about how to conduct historical research than I have. I am much more comfortable with interviewing the students, listening for themes that resonate with the majority of them, and reporting about those than I am with sifting through historical information. Nevertheless, given the fact that I was driven to understand that time in history, I searched for information that helped me to make sense of what happened to me and to others as members of the twenty-five. Newspaper articles, legal decisions, and the recently released (2014) minutes of the Little Rock School Board from that era were the primary sources of material that were found to be of help in piecing together the puzzle of how junior high desegregation took place.

We have questions. Are there answers? I initially hoped to find answers to several questions that had lingered in my mind for years by conducting a search of historical data and legal documents. I also hoped to discover answers from the interviews of the participants. Other questions arose, however, as a result of the responses received during the interviews. The general questions explored were:

1. What was the reason the entire school district was not being simultaneously desegregated?

2. What was the method of implementing desegregation of the junior high schools in 1961?

3. How did the students’ parents and other important figures prepare them to desegregate the schools? Were they given the opportunity to make a decision about whether to attend that school?

4. What was their perception of the level or quality of education they received in the junior high school, perhaps as compared to what was received in their elementary school?

5. How did attending their predominantly White junior high school influence their lives as adults?

This book will first provide a contextual backdrop to the school desegregation process. In chapter 1, we will briefly explore the Arkansas response to the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling and the subsequent Arkansas court decisions that resulted when the state delayed with desegregation. The original plan of desegregation developed by the Little Rock School Board, called the Blossom Plan, will be described. Finally, we will provide a very brief overview of the desegregation of Central High School by the now famous Little Rock Nine. This chapter will in no way attempt to provide a detailed approach to that historical time, as it has been amply covered in other forms of literature. The Central High Crisis, important in its own right, is also an integral element that led to what is identified as phase two of Little Rock’s desegregation process.

Chapter 2 launches the discussion about phase two of the Little Rock public school desegregation, that of the junior high schools. The desegregation process of the first four schools in 1961 and the final one in 1962 is discussed. Also covered is the attempt made by thirty-nine students to desegregate the junior high schools in 1960, and the successful campaign made by the school district to delay desegregation in the junior high schools. The original date indicated by the school board and approved by the federal district courts to begin junior high desegregation was 1960. Also included is content of some of the appeals hearings of students who attempted to enroll into the schools.

The next few chapters consist of the actual stories of the former students as told through their memories of that time. Chapter 3 is devoted to six of the nine students who desegregated East Side. Chapter 4 highlights the one student who attended Forest Heights. Chapter 5 features the two students who desegregated Pulaski Heights, while chapter 6 does the same with the two students placed at Southwest. Finally, chapter 7 concentrates on seven of the twelve students who were initially identified as desegregating West Side Junior High. One of those students did not attend the school assigned. That information surfaced over the course of gathering the data for this book.

A cautionary disclaimer is offered: As the schools desegregated in 1960 and 1961, it is realistic to point out that some of the participants’ memories of things may be clouded by the passage of time. It is also important to mention that several of the participants indicated they actively repressed memories of the pain involved with the experiences they shared. Nevertheless, these stories were their recollections of what occurred and how they felt, and their recognition of how those events influenced their lives.

Chapter 8 provides information concerning significant findings that emerged from the students’ responses to the final three research questions that are listed at the beginning of the book. The first two questions are addressed in chapters 1 and 2. Chapter 9 offers recommendations by these former students for parents, educators, and members of the community.

One final word prior to moving forward in this book has to do with the use of various racial terms. Readers will see the words Negro, Colored, Nigras, Black, and African American. All of these terms have been used to describe African Americans. During the 1950s and 1960s, however, the names Negro or Colored were in use by both African Americans and Caucasians. Nigras seemed to be a slightly less derogatory form of the word Nigger. Nevertheless, it was just as derogatory as the latter word. Those expressions were specifically found in the documents reviewed during the process of gathering and interpreting research for this book. The more recent and perhaps more politically correct term, N-word, was not in use during the 1960s and does not adequately describe the experience of African Americans during the time of school desegregation. It will therefore not be used in this book. The word White was used for the dominant culture. That term is still in use today but is also substituted occasionally with Caucasian or European American. Readers will see these expressions used in this book.

Reading audience. Readers who love to fill in gaps concerning history in general or civil rights history more specifically will enjoy reading this book. Adults, parents, grandparents, and educators may enjoy sharing this information with children and youth in a way that they can understand it, for it is frequently said that a people who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it.

It is hoped that this book will have value for families of the twenty-first century. Although the times have changed since the 1960s, some things remain the same. Although the setting is in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the subject is desegregation, the book may appeal to those who have experienced various types of rejection, including discrimination. Racism, hatred, and bullying, unfortunately, remain a part of what occurs in middle schools and beyond. This book may serve as a vehicle for exploring how to identify and solve such problems in a constructive manner.

CHAPTER 1

Setting the Context

To fully comprehend the stories of the African American students who first attended the White junior high schools in Little Rock, the context is established by exploring what was occurring before and during that time. For instance, only the seventh grade was desegregated in the junior high schools in 1961. This chapter provides the answer to one of our original questions: What was the reason the entire school district was not being simultaneously desegregated?

Arkansas’s Response to Brown v. Board of Education

When the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously ruled on May 17, 1954, that segregation of itself deprives Negro children of equal opportunities (Brown v. Board of Education 1954), and ordered integration of public schools to proceed, Arkansas governor Francis Cherry voiced his opinion that there would be no problem with the state having to comply with the court order. His opinion seemed to verbally support a belief that the state would be able to find a way to meet the requirements within a year of that ruling. He disagreed with the proponents of fighting the court order and appeared to want to maintain racial harmony. In the article, titled Cherry Says Arkansas to Meet Requirements (Arkansas Democrat, May 18, 1954a), the writer stated the governor hoped that the problem could be solved ‘without incidents’ and he expressed the hope that ‘this matter does not set back the advancement by Negro people in Arkansas in recent years.’

Based on Governor Cherry’s early statements, Arkansas appeared to be off to a positive start toward desegregating the schools within a year. Indeed, desegregation had already been achieved in some schools within Arkansas—including Fayetteville, Charleston, Hoxie, Fort Smith, and Van Buren—prior to the 1957 Central High desegregation (Fort Worth Herald Tribune, September 1, 1957). Some of these included smaller school districts that desired to immediately carry out the order from the Supreme Court because they had very small African American populations living in their areas. Those school districts were losing a great deal of money busing children to atttend segregated schools in districts located miles away from home, or were paying for private educations of other African American students (Kirk, 2011). Nevertheless, school districts such as Charleston and Fayetteville (1954), Hoxie (1955), and Bentonville (1956) began to place African American students into the public White school system (Kirk 2011).

What went wrong with desegregation in the other areas of the state? One of the main setbacks occurred when Cherry’s position as governor was upset in the very next elction. He was in office for only one term, 1953–1955. Cherry, already struggling because of decisions he had made in other areas, was in a runoff for the governor’s race for reelection at the time of the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education (Dougan 2016). Second, although Cherry voiced a positive sentiment toward desegregation immediately following the Supreme Court’s decision, he was primarily silent on that issue until the court made the ruling, at which point he voiced his opinion that desegregation would occur smoothly. Gubernatorial candidate Orval Faubus, on the other hand, warned that any sudden integration would disturb the state’s harmonious race relations (Dougan 2016), thus seeding the likelihood that there would most certainly be problems if desegregation was to occur in Arkansas. Although this issue alone did not lead to Cherry’s defeat, it may have affected it.

A third reason for the setback of school desegregation was the fact that many people wanted to maintain segregation, including those involved in the growing number of citizens’ councils that were being launched in various parts of Arkansas. Campaigns were formed in such towns as Van Buren, Sheridan, and Charleston in an attempt to either prevent desegregation or re-segregate the districts. Many elected officials from Arkansas opposed desegregation. By 1956, all eight members of Arkansas’s delegation to the United States Congress voted for the Southern Manifesto—a document opposing racial integration of public places. They were joined by ninety-three other members of the US Senate and the House of Representatives. Elected members of the Arkansas legislature also passed many bills to forestall desegregation (Kirk 2011, 233). The Arkansas legisture introduced and approved such bills as HB 488 into the Arkansas House of Representatives (Valachovic 1955). This measure sought to maintain segregation in the public schools of Arkansas. Ernest Valachovic, a writer at the Arkansas Gazette, indicated that Negro leaders launched an appeal to get members of the senate to vote against this measure. Although they also attempted to meet with the new Governor, Orval Faubus, they could not have known at the time just how staunchly he was in favor of maintaining segregation in the schools.

The decision of the Supreme Court in what has become known as Brown II appeared to cloud the matter of desegregation to some extent. Although Chief Justice Earl Warren affirmed the court’s original statement that racial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional, he basically left the decision as to how swiftly each local district could achieve desegregation status up to the lower courts and school administrations by explaining that districts and school authorities might have various types of problems they may need to address before they could fully implement desegregation. The bottom line that the Supreme Court placed was that lower courts would have to determine whether the districts were operating in good faith in their plans to desegregte the schools. The burden of proof would be placed upon the school districts to argue that the delay was legitimate (Brown v. Board of Education 1955).

Aaron v. Cooper. Tired of waiting for the state of Arkansas to begin the process of desgregating, as promised by former Governor Cherry, a group of students attempted to desegregate the public schools in Little Rock. On January 23, 1956, twenty-seven Negro children appeared at various White schools to apply for midyear transfers (Forster 1960). They were turned away and ultimately referred to Virgil Blossom, the superintendent of the school district. The students were not allowed to register in any of the schools. Instead, they were informed of the fact that the school board was working on a plan to desegregate. On February 8, 1956, thirty-three children, through their guardians, filed a complaint in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, Western Division against President and Secretary of the Board of Directors of Little Rock School District; the Superintendent of Little Rock School District; and the Little Rock School District itself (Arkansas Gazette, August 29, 1956). The same news issue identified the case as John Aaron et al., . . . Plantiffs v. Civil action No. 3113. Wm. G. Cooper, et al., Defendants. The name of the first child in the suit was John Aaron. The name of the president of the school board was Dr. William Cooper; thus the name of the original case became known as Aaron v. Cooper. Subsequent case names changed for the names of new school board presidents (Forster 1960). The original case was tried before Judge John E. Miller on August 15, 1956, and the opinion was rendered by him on August 28, 1956 (Aaron v. Cooper 1956). The students, or plaintiffs in the suit, argued that they were being denied their right to attend desegregated schools solely on the basis of their color or race and that this was keeping them from pursuing the right to have the level of education guaranteed them by the Constitution. They argued that the defendants, or the school board, were depriving them of their rights (Arkansas Gazette, August 29, 1956; Aaron v. Cooper 1956).

Ultimately Judge Miller, recommended for this position by Governor Faubus, issued a judgement primarily in favor of the defendants (private communication on January 27, 1956, and April 16, 1957, from Governor Faubus to then-citizen Winthrop Rockefeller). He ruled that the defendants were not attempting to keep the educational institutions segregated. Instead, his judgment was that the defendants were doing what was necessary to bring about an integrated system (Aaron v. Cooper 1956).

On August 28, 1956, Judge Miller found that the Little Rock School Board had developed an appropriate plan of desegregation, which he considered as the only real argument of the plaintiffs against the defendants. Judge Miller therefore approved that desegregation plan and denied the injunction of the plantiffs, citing the fact that he considered the testimony of the defendant, the superintendent of schools, to be convincing. Miller believed the school district was doing all that it could to bring about "a plan that will lead to an effective and gradual adjustment of the problem, and ultimately bring about a school system not based on color distinctions" (Arkansas Gazette, August 29, 1956; emphasis added).

Arkansas Legislature Challenges the United States Supreme Court

Legal action pertaining to the matter of segregation versus desegregation was taking place simultaneously at both the Arkansas judicial and legislative levels. Such bills led to acts that reinforced states’ rights over the rulings of the Supreme Court. The rationale given was that the judgments were out of line with the Constitution of the United States. Governor Faubus wanted a state sovereignty commission, armed with broad, sweeping powers to maintain segregation. Each amendment was ultimately overturned; however, the governor and legislative body of that time clearly demonstrated their desire to challenge the right of the federal government to supersede the desire of the state of Arkansas to maintain segregation. (See appendix 2 for more details about the amendments.)

The School Board’s Plan (Blossom): The Phases of Desegregation

What was the plan Judge Miller mentioned? The Little Rock School Board adopted a plan of desegregation on May 24, 1955. The original plan, Little Rock Board of Education’s Plan of School Integration, also known as the Blossom Plan because it was developed during the time of Superintendent Virgil Blossom, offered three primary recommendations to take place for this most difficult educational problem of our time to be resolved (1956, 1; Arkansas Gazette, August 29, 1956). First, the school board stressed the need of the school district to build additional schools—three senior high schools and six junior high schools—to accommodate the time aspect of integration. In other words, until those schools were completed, full integration could not take place (Arkansas Gazette, August 29, 1956). Second, the school board believed that desegregation needed to begin gradually, with the entry of Negro students to the White high schools (FBI: Little Rock Crisis Reports: UALR 0044, Box 1, File 10, Director’s Brief 2673, Volume I, File 3, Chronology page B1). The rationale given by the superintendent was, Due to the complexity of this problem, an orderly systematically planned process should be followed (Plan of School Integration 1956, 1). Third, the school board argued that they needed to wait on a proper time and method for the integration of the schools of Little Rock School District in a manner consistent with the law as finally interpreted by the Supreme Court and acceptable to both races (Arkansas Gazette, August 29, 1956). The board essentially delayed the timing of desegregation by rationalizing that the ball was in the court of the Supreme Court (FBI: Little Rock Crisis Reports: UALR 0044, Box 1 File 10:2673 Director’s Brief, Volume II: UALR Exhibit 3: Little Rock School Board plan of gradual integration). The board proposed that desegregation not begin until the 1957–1958 school year, at which time it should begin at the high school level. This idea was based on their publicly expressed opinion that, while additional schools needed to be constructed at all levels, the ninth through twelth grades would require fewer new schools and teachers. They proposed that the second phase of desegregation would begin at the junior-high level in 1960, following successful integration at the senior high school level. Finally, following successful integration at the junior high school level, desegregation would be implemented at the elementary school level in the third phase in 1963, (Arkansas Gazette, August 29, 1956) or two or three years thereafter (Minutes, March 21, 1960, 1; Aaron v. Tucker 1960). Denying charges that they were delaying the process of desegregating, the board objected to beginning the process simultaneously, arguing that they wanted to benefit from their experience by beginning desegregation first at the high school level (FBI: Little Rock Crisis Reports: UALR 0044, Box 1 File 10, Director’s Brief 2673, Volume II: UALR Exhibit 3: Little Rock School Board plan of gradual integration).

The ruling of Judge John E. Miller to approve the Little Rock School Board’s request for gradual integration in essence meant this plan allowed the schools to slowly desegregate over a period of a minimum of ten years, beginning in 1957 (Frick