Congress Honors Little Rock Nine And Memory Of Daisy Bates At White House

The nine Black students who bravely entered an all-White high school in Little Rock, AR, more than 40 years ago led by the late Daisy Bates were honored for their heroism by President Clinton with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award bestowed by Congress, at a recent White House ceremony.

The men and women who passed through the throng of angry Whites shouting racist jeers and death threats and spitting on them that day, Sept. 25 1957, when they first integrated Central High School came to be known as the Little Rock Nine.

And the woman who guided them, Daisy Bates, who at the time was president of the Arkansas conference of NAACP branches, was hailed as a champion of civil rights before her recent death at the age of 84 (JET, Nov. 22).

"We were really ordinary people," Ernest Green, 58, told the audience at the White House Ceremony. "We were simply exercising our right to the best education in the world." Green, now a Washington investment counselor, was among the famed nine students sent to Central High to enforce a school integration order.

When then-Gov. Orval Faubus posted National Guard troops to block the Black teens from entering, President Dwight Eisenhower ordered federal troops to escort them in. The action followed the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case, Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, KS, which outlawed racial segregation in public schools.

Along with Green, the other members of the Little Rock Nine who received medals were Melba Pattillo Beals, Elizabeth Eckford, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls Lanier, Minnijean Brown Trickey, Gloria Ray Karlmark, and Thelma Mothershed-Wair.

"The story of the Little Rock Nine in the end is the story of the triumph of the rule of law in the American Constitution," Clinton said, noting that the occasion was "a happy and a sad day." Happy because the nine students were honored, yet sad because of the death of his dear friend Mrs. Bates, who as advisor to the teens met with them in her home before their walk to school for encouragement. "Daisy said what they endured was a volcano of hatred," Clinton recalled. At the time of the historic event, he was 11, living 50 miles away from Central High and attending an all-White school.

"These people, they just burst in on our lives," he said. "All of sudden they showed up and it wasn't the way things were anymore. And then everyone had to decide ... where you stand on this? What do you believe? How are we going to live?

"I feel like I've been walking along with them for 42 years now," said Clinton, who hugged each member and kissed the cheeks of the women. He also thanked dozens of members of Congress for allowing the ceremony to be held at the White House.

Speaking of Mrs. Bates, Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln told the honorees: "I know she was a guardian angel of sorts for you. I know she is with us today in spirit."

The legislators who led the campaign to honor the nine, former Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-AR), who started the effort two years ago, and Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), who continued it and won passage of the measure last year, were also on hand at the ceremony.

"We asked these nine children to be brave and heroic and they were." Bumpers said. "Their place in history is finally etched and will never be erased."