The Little Rock Nine (1 Viewer)

[APSaintsFan]

http://time.com/3874341/little-rock-nine-1957-photos/

My Dad was In the Arkansas National Guard during this time. About a month before he died he said to me that he was sorry for what they did to the nine back then. He was 20 at the time. He remembered that they were against them until the President made them literally turn around and be against the Anti-Integrationist.

He said that was one of the worst times of his life.

I am posting this because of the 60th anniversary coming up.

AP

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Bump

 

[Saint_Ward]

Last year the girl (now 11) had a Scholastic News article on the Little Rock Nine. She absorbed some of it, but a few things went over her head. So, I made her watch a few Youtube videos of old news reals and documentaries of the situation.

I enjoy seeing her reactions... "why would they do that? What's the problem? Why are they treating them so mean?"

Gives me hope.

 

[porculator]

60 years is a long time but at the same time it's crazy how recent it was.

Most of us weren't around for segregation but we were all raised by people that went to a specific school based on their skin pigment.

Even something as seemingly distant as slavery is still not that long ago in the scheme of things. Growing up in the south in the 1920's, my grandparents would have known former slave owners.

Just nuts to think that the standards we have today that seem so innate were blasphemous just a few generations back.

 

[APSaintsFan]

My Dad passed in mid-September 2015. When he talked to me about it, it was early August 2015 and we were talking about the anniversary coming up. He knew he was going to pass and I think he wanted to get this off his chest. I mean he did change a lot in the last 5 years of his life. In Feb 2009, He was talking about this and that about President Obama really bad but the early Summer 2015 he was talking really good about him. Something must have clicked in him, I do not know.

AP

 

[APSaintsFan]

My Dad passed in mid-September 2015. When he talked to me about it, it was early August 2015 and we were talking about the anniversary coming up. He knew he was going to pass and I think he wanted to get this off his chest. I mean he did change a lot in the last 5 years of his life. In Feb 2009, He was talking about this and that about President Obama really bad but the early Summer 2015 he was talking really good about him. Something must have clicked in him, I do not know.

AP

 

[B-Rich]

Most of us weren't around for segregation but we were all raised by people that went to a specific school based on their skin pigment.

I started first grade in Starkville, MS. in 1970. It was the FIRST YEAR of integration in Mississippi; we were the FIRST CLASS YEAR to ever be integrated from day one. This was backed up to me on an ESPN special I saw about Marcus Dupree; his class in Philadelphia, MS (same year as mine) was also the 1st integrated class.

Even so, we weren't REALLY integrated right away in Starkville. We were in the same school, but all of the black kids for 1st grade were in one classroom; all the white kids were in another. In the afternoons, about 7 or 8 students from each class would move across the hall and "switch" classes to assimilate. Of course, we all played together out on the yard at recess.

I tell my daughters about it and they are dumbstruck that I really lived that experience. The idea of it is so foreign to them, and that is a good thing.

 

[Optimus Prime]

I went to middle school with someone who was related to one of the nine some kind of way

I don't remember who (the classmate or which of the nine) or how they were related, I remember her talking about it when we learned about it during class

 

[Saint_Ward]

It's interesting that normally they talk about the battle leading up to getting the kids in school. They talk about getting turned away by state police, then later the US military makes sure the kids come in. The white riots outside, and beating that one man with a brick, the one girl who was separate from the others by accident and had to deal with taunts until someone came to her aid.

But when I read the scholastic news story, and the stuff I found on Youtube, the part that gets underplayed is how terrible of a year it was for those students. They had military escort outside and between classes, but not in or in the bathrooms. They would get ganged up on in those areas sometimes. One kid ended up getting suspended for finally standing up for themselves and pouring soup or chili on another kid who was tormenting them.