[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 140 (Thursday, September 20, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11775-S11777]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DESEGREGATION OF LITTLE ROCK CENTRAL HIGH 
                                 SCHOOL

  Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, September 25, 2007, marks the 50th 
anniversary of one of the most important days in our country's history 
and certainly one of the most important days in the history of our 
State of Arkansas. On that day in 1957, Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth 
Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Pattillo, Gloria Ray, 
Terrence Roberts, Jefferson

[[Page S11776]]

Thomas, and Carlotta Walls changed the world when they entered the 
doors to Little Rock Central High School and desegregated the Little 
Rock school district.
  Known collectively as the Little Rock Nine, these brave young men and 
women faced down a jeering crowd, the Arkansas National Guard, and even 
their own Governor to take a principled stand and march toward greater 
equality for all in our Nation and in my home State of Arkansas.
  As the mother of growing children right now, thinking of what those 
students must have felt at that time to have taken such a stand, to 
stand before their peers who were jeering and yelling at them, to stand 
up to authority as they did, must have been incredible.
  Next week in Little Rock, we will commemorate the heroic sacrifice 
these students made to blaze a trail so that future generations could 
benefit. In doing so, it is also appropriate to recognize those in the 
community who uplifted these individuals and gave them the strength 
they needed.
  Arkansas Daisy and L.C. Bates, Chris Mercer, Wiley Branton, and 
future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall either gave these 
children daily guidance or fought for them in the court system to 
ensure they could have access to a quality education that was their 
right as a citizen of this country.
  We all think about the images and certainly the impression we leave 
on children today. We think about these individuals who made such an 
impact in the support they gave these children as they took this very 
important step. We must also not forget the enormous role the parents 
of the Little Rock Nine played to ignore threats and intimidation that 
came their way.
  Again, as a parent and thinking of the preparation that goes into 
encouraging your children to take new steps and to stand up for what is 
right is tough because you know what your children will come up 
against. Those parents had to have had mixed emotions to send their 
children out there and wonder what kind of harm or what kind of 
crushing blow would come to their self-esteem or to their confidence.
  Yet they supported it in every way known, making sure their clothes 
looked perfect or making sure their bodies and their souls were strong. 
What incredible parents they were.
  What happened in Little Rock 50 years ago is not only a testament to 
those students, but it is also a testament to those who supported them. 
It is a testament to the people of Little Rock of all backgrounds who 
decided they would confront their own conscience, and it is a testament 
to those who, upon reflecting upon the matter, decided that doing what 
is right was worth the cost.
  I also wish to recognize other communities in Arkansas that led the 
way for integration in the Deep South, even prior to the famous 
standoff of 1957; often these others receive little attention. Shortly 
after the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, the communities 
of Charleston, Fayetteville, and Hoxie desegregated their schools to 
comply with the ruling of the Supreme Court.
  Former U.S. Senator Dale Bumpers, a Charleston native and the 
attorney for the Charleston School Board in 1954, was very involved in 
his community's decision.
  In a recent newspaper interview, he recounted that the members of the 
Charleston School Board made up their mind that the Supreme Court 
decision meant what it said and Charleston could save itself a lot of 
trouble by going ahead and integrating immediately instead of fighting 
it, fighting it out, essentially knowing it would be a lost cause.
  Dale Bumpers continued to push for change, later as a lawyer, our 
Governor in Arkansas, and our U.S. Senator in Arkansas. In 1988, he 
authored the legislation that established the Little Rock Central High 
School National Historic Site which is administered by the National 
Park Service, the Little Rock School District and the City of Little 
Rock and other entities.
  He was also responsible for the legislation that awarded the Little 
Rock Nine with the Congressional Gold Medal, our Nation's highest 
civilian honor. Monday, I and my colleagues will be in Little Rock to 
dedicate the new visitors center and the museum at that site. The new 
center will feature exhibits on the Little Rock Nine and the road to 
desegregation.
  As a young child myself who experienced firsthand the integration of 
schools in my hometown of Helana, AR, I cannot imagine the fear and 
anxiety those students must have felt in that tumultuous environment in 
1957.
  I feel fortunate that my community embraced the process of 
integration and that my parents, in particular, were engaged and kept 
me in the local school district when so many of my friends were being 
moved to private schools.
  My husband Steve, who is a graduate of Little Rock Central High 
School, and I are both better people for learning in integrated schools 
and experiencing the diversity and what it provides us.
  I appreciate the lifelong lessons I learned in my early years. It is 
because of the Little Rock Nine that it was possible. Their decision to 
move this Nation forward makes me proud to be an Arkansan. It makes me 
proud to be an American.
  In closing, I wish to specifically thank my colleagues from the 
Arkansas delegation, especially the Presiding Officer, my colleague, 
Senator Mark Pryor, and Congressman Vic Snyder. I have been so proud to 
work with both of them to secure the funding for the new visitors 
center.
  In addition, I joined with Senator Pryor, who also attended Little 
Rock Central High, to introduce a resolution which recognizes the 50th 
anniversary of the school desegregation. It passed the Senate earlier 
this month. I wish to thank all my colleagues for their support in that 
effort.
  We all know there is still much to be done, still much that can be 
done in our country to ensure the goals of the Little Rock Nine are 
achieved and that equal rights are available for each and every 
individual in this great Nation.
  We have come very far in the last 50 years. As we move forward, we 
should let the lessons of the past provide a measure of our progress 
and the inspiration to build on our achievements for all our fellow 
Americans.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Lincoln.) Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, the names Ernest Green, Elizabeth 
Eckford, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Minnijean Brown 
Trickey, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas, Thelma Mothershed Wair, 
Melba Pattillo Beals are part of Arkansas history and part of America's 
history.
  When I talked to the so-called Little Rock Nine about the fact that 
we were able to secure funding for the visitors center, Minnijean Brown 
Trickey said it was an affirmation of a very beautiful and tragic 
story.
  I think she captured it. The story of Little Rock Central High School 
in 1957 is a story of courage, of hardship, of justice, faith, 
tradition, power, opportunity, and leadership. I think that is why the 
story is so powerful, because it connects so many of those things all 
in one event or one series of events.
  It has all of those elements, but there is also more to the story. 
The ``more to the story'' part is what I wanted to talk about today. We 
are here to talk about the events in 1957, to talk about the very 
painful but ultimately successful integration of a large public high 
school in a Southern city.
  I need to thank my colleagues, Senator Lincoln from Arkansas; my 
colleague in the House, Congressman Vic Snyder; and also a colleague 
who is no longer with us in the Senate, Conrad Burns, because we all 
worked together to get the money for the Little Rock Central High 
Visitors Center, which will open this coming Monday.

  But that is not all who worked in this effort. The National Park 
Service, the city of Little Rock, the 50th Anniversary Commemoration 
Committee, the Little Rock Nine Foundation, and countless others worked 
to have this special grand opening Monday; to have a visitors center, 
for a place that has a

[[Page S11777]]

place in our Nation's history on the civil rights struggle that has 
gone on in this country.
  Also, I wish to say that Congressman Vic Snyder was able to get a 
commemorative coin for Little Rock Central and the Little Rock Nine. I 
certainly helped him do that, along with Senator Lincoln. We all worked 
hard on that, but Congressman Snyder took the lead role.
  This Friday night at Little Rock Central High School in Quigley 
Stadium, the Little Rock Central High Tigers will play the Pine Bluff 
Zebras. Once again, we find Little Rock Central is ranked in the top 10 
in the Arkansas top 10 football rankings. But that stadium played a 
role in the Central High crisis. It is a role that is often forgotten 
because we focus on the Little Rock Nine, and certainly we should.
  We focus on the turbulence in trying to integrate the school, and 
certainly we should. But also there were many other happenings at 
Little Rock Central that year. One of them was Little Rock Central High 
School just so happened to have what Sports Illustrated and other 
sports magazines and publications have called one of the alltime 
greatest high school football teams. That week Central High won its 
23rd game in a row, against a team from Louisiana. The week before they 
beat a team from Texas. That same week, when the 101st Airborne showed 
up to restore order and keep the peace around the campus of Little Rock 
High School, the 101st Airborne set up their equipment on the Tigers' 
practice field.
  Well, that was a huge no-no in the mind of Coach Wilson Matthews. He 
went out there and he barked orders to the 101st Airborne like they 
were his own football team. They hopped to and they got off the 
practice field. That Friday night, when the stands were full and the 
Tigers took the field, they looked up and there was the 101st Airborne 
cheering for the Central High School Tigers.
  That story is captured in a great story in Sports Illustrated from 
this past year's April 9 publication. It captures the humanity and the 
impact that crisis had on people, not just that day or that year but 
for a lifetime.
  The Little Rock Central High School story is complicated in some 
ways. It is about the best and the worst in American history. In some 
ways, it is about a city that is struggling to try, in postwar America, 
to work through many racial issues. It is a story that is not always 
successful. It is not always easy. But it is a story that in the end is 
a great story and is one that needs to be told.
  Let me talk for a couple more minutes about the events of that day 
and why Little Rock Central is so important to the history of this 
country. First, we focus on the Little Rock Nine, and understandably 
these nine young black children had to pay a huge price; it took a lot 
of courage to do what they did. But it is more than them.
  We had a Southern city that, by most standards, was considered to be 
a moderate Southern city when it came to race. The Little Rock School 
Board took the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision literally, and 
they believed they needed to integrate the Little Rock School System 
with all deliberate speed, as the Supreme Court said.
  The quickest they could figure out to do it was in the fall of 1957. 
Of course, when that happened, they entered into this vortex of 
emotions, this vortex where you see a nation being torn apart by race 
and by many policies, not just in the South. We talk about the South, 
but certainly there is racism all over this country, and this country 
was in a struggle for civil rights.
  In fact, it goes back to the founding documents of our democracy and 
our Declaration of Independence. It says all men are created equal. 
That is what the desegregation, the integration movement was about in 
this country: Are all men created equal or are there going to be two 
sets of everything for people in this country?
  The Supreme Court did what it did. The local school board did what it 
did. The Governor in our State, to his everlasting shame, did not 
support what the school board did and actually energized people to 
oppose what the school board had done. The President had to call in the 
101st Airborne to try to stop what was going on at Little Rock Central. 
Here is a photo of the famous Little Rock Nine. They are going to be 
honored all week in Little Rock. Again, they showed tremendous courage 
as they went through this process. Here we see a photo of Little Rock 
Central High with the 101st Airborne escorting students into the 
building. It is hard to imagine today; we have made such progress. I 
will be the first to say we are not there yet when it comes to race, 
but we have made so much progress.
  Little Rock Central High School was a turning point. It didn't mean 
the struggle was over. In a lot of ways, it meant the struggle was 
beginning. But we have made a lot of progress. We have a lot to be 
proud of. Not everything that happened in 1957 is something Arkansas is 
proud of. But nonetheless, it was a huge turning point in making this 
country better.
  I close talking about Little Rock Central High School today. Here is 
a photo of it today. The school looks identical to the way it looked in 
1957. The architects of this country have called it one of the most 
beautiful high schools in America. It is now also one of the most 
successful high schools in America.
  I pulled something off a history Web site. It says:

       Central offers students an international studies magnet 
     program and an extensive curriculum including more than 30 
     Advanced Placement . . . courses. Central consistently has 
     more National Merit Semifinalists than any other school in 
     the state (19 in 2006-07 alone), claims a large percentage of 
     the state's National Achievement Semifinalists (approximately 
     20% of Arkansas' total between 1994 and 2004) and has 
     produced 15 Presidential Scholars since the program's 
     inception in 1964.

  Part of the story of Little Rock Central must include what has 
happened since September 25, 1957. Part of the story of Little Rock 
Central is a story about rebuilding, about integrating, about coming 
back, and about success.
  I was very honored to have an opportunity to go to Little Rock 
Central High School, as did the husband of the senior Senator from the 
State of Arkansas. It has produced many strong leaders in the State. 
One of those was a dear friend of mine, Roosevelt Thompson, who passed 
away tragically when he was in college. But the story of Little Rock 
Central is a story that touches all of us. It is a very important part 
of our State's history and our national history.
  We are honored that all nine of the Little Rock Nine are still living 
today and will be in Little Rock this week to commemorate some very 
difficult but very important events for this country.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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