Clinton opens school doors for Little Rock Nine on 40th anniversary

Jet, Oct 13, 1997

Forty years ago, a group of nine Black students, now known as the Little Rock Nine, courageously desegregated the all-White Central High School as they entered the school with armed escorts. On the 40th anniversary of that landmark day, President Bill Clinton stood at the door and opened it for them.

The president urged Americans to again push back the barriers of racism.

"Segregation is no longer the law, but too often separation is still the rule," Clinton told the 2,000 people gathered on the front lawn of the Little Rock, AR, school.

"Forty years ago today they climbed these steps, passed through this door and moved our nation," he continued. "And for that, we must all thank them."

In 1957 the controversial battle elevated when Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus went against court orders and ordered the Arkansas National Guard to keep the Black students from desegregating the school. The standoff lasted a tense three weeks.

President Dwight Eisenhower then sent members of the Army to escort the students to the school on Sept. 25. When they passed through the front doorway of Central High School, the Little Rock Nine endured jeers, threats and were spit upon as they attended school.

"If those nine children could walk up those steps 40 years ago all alone, if their parents could send them into the storm armed only with schoolbooks and the righteousness of their cause, then surely we can build a better America," Clinton said. "Let us resolve to stand on the shoulders of the Little Rock Nine."

The nine former students are Melba Patillo Beals, 55, of Sausalito, CA, a writer; Elizabeth Eckford, 55, of Little Rock, who is on disability; Ernest Green, 56, of Washington, D.C., a managing director of Lehman Brothers investment bank; Gloria Ray Karlmark, 54, of Vught, the Netherlands, a retired lawyer; Carlotta Walls LaNier, 55, of Englewood, CO, a real estate broker; Terrence D. Roberts, 55, of Pasadena, CA, the chairman of the psychology department at Antioch University; Jefferson Thomas, 55, of Columbus, OH, a financial specialist with the Department of Defense; Minnijean Brown Trickey, 56, of Ottawa, Ontario, a social worker; and Thelma Mothershed Wair, 56, of Belleville, IL, a retired educator.

President Clinton used the occasion to address the segregation that still lurks in schools and communities.

"Today, children of every race walk through the same door, but then they often walk down different halls," Clinton said. "Not only in this school, but across America, they sit in different classrooms, they eat at different tables. They even sit in different parts of the bleachers at the football game.

"Far too many communities are all White, all Black, all Latino, all Asian. Indeed, too many Americans of all races have actually begun to give up on the idea of integration and the search for common ground."

The President continued, "There are still people who can't get over it, who can't let it go, who can't go through the day unless they have somebody else to look down on. And it manifests itself in our streets and in our neighborhoods, and in the workplace, and in the schools. And it is wrong. And we have to keep working on it, not just with our voices, but with our laws. And we have to engage each other in it.

"Of course we should celebrate our diversity; the marvelous blends of cultures and beliefs and races have always enriched America, and it is our meal ticket to the 21st century. But we also have to remember with the painful lessons of the civil wars and the ethnic cleansing around the world, that any nation that indulges itself in destructive separatism will not be able to meet and master the challenges of the 21st century."

The president's address was billed as a benchmark in his fledging national dialogue on race relations, according to White House aides.

"There are still a lot of doors we have to open," Clinton told "There are still some doors we have to open wider."

First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Attorney General Janet Reno and Thurgood Marshall Jr., son of the first Black Supreme Court justice, were among the dignitaries at the event. Fatima McKindra, the first Black female to be elected Central's student council president, introduced Clinton.

Neither the local nor state NAACP chapters participated in the event, saying there is little racial healing going on in modern-day Little Rock.

Other events celebrating the historic incident included the reunion of Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery. A photographer, Will Counts, snapped a famous picture of the two students. Eckford was leaving the school as Bryan Massery and other students taunted her by saying, "Go home nigger." Bryan Massery apologized to Eckford in a telephone conversation five years after the incident, but the two had never met until the 40th anniversary, when they toured the new Central High visitors center where the historical picture is displayed. Events also were held simultaneously in the nation's capital.