[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 143 (Tuesday, September 25, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12021-S12022]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            LITTLE ROCK NINE

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today marks an important anniversary in 
America's continuing efforts to create a truly just and more perfect 
Union. It was 50 years ago today--50 years--that nine courageous high 
school students in Little Rock, AR, stood up to a jeering, threatening 
crowd, the Arkansas National Guard, and their own Governor to claim 
their fundamental right for equal educational opportunity.
  I can still recall as a child, seeing that scene on black-and-white 
television, a scene that has been replayed so many times, watching 
those students as they walked through that gauntlet of hate into a high 
school. High school, for most of us, was a joyous experience, a happy 
experience. For many of these students, their high school career began 
with fear.
  These young people, not chosen by any scientific method but almost by 
chance, came to be known as the Little Rock Nine. Thankfully, it is 
hard for many Americans to understand what courage it took for them to 
walk into Little Rock Central High School in 1957. You know what it 
took? For those kids to walk into that high school, it took an order 
from President Dwight David Eisenhower, the protection of the U.S. 
Army, the extraordinary legal talents of future Supreme Court Justice 
Thurgood Marshall, and daily guidance from caring adults such as Daisy 
and L.C. Bates. Above all, it took the daily faith and courage of those 
nine young kids and their families.
  The crowds who surrounded Little Rock Central that day may have 
disappeared after a few tense days, but the taunts and threats to those 
nine students continued for the entire school year. In the end, those 
nine young students became America's teachers. They showed us and they 
showed America how we could live closer to our ideals.
  Although their names will always be linked first and foremost with 
Arkansas, the people of my State are proud that four of the Little Rock 
Nine went on to college in Illinois. Gloria Ray Karlmark earned a 
mathematics degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 
Chicago. Three of the Little Rock Nine earned degrees at Southern 
Illinois University, a great university in my State, which prides 
itself on having opened its doors and cast away any racial prejudice 
very early. It became well known throughout the African-American 
community as a place where higher education was available for those 
African-American students who were striving to better themselves.
  Minnijean Brown Trickey graduated from Southern Illinois University 
and went on to a distinguished career in education, social work, and 
public service that included serving in the Clinton administration as a 
Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Department of the Interior.
  Dr. Terrance Roberts earned a master's degree and a Ph.D. in 
psychology from SIU. Today, he is a professor and practicing 
psychologist in California.
  Thelma Mothershed Wair earned a B.S. and a master's degree in 
guidance counseling from SIU, married a fellow SIU student from my 
hometown of East St. Louis, and served as an educator and an 
inspiration in the East St. Louis school system for 28 years before she 
retired.
  A lot has changed in America over the last 50 years. Little Rock 
Central High School remains one of the best, most challenging high 
schools in Arkansas. Today, it has an African-American student body 
president. Other communities that were once deeply divided by race--and 
not all of them in the South, I might add--have changed as well.
  In my home State, my Land of Lincoln, a few weeks ago I visited a 
town I have come to know over many decades--Cairo, IL. Forty-five years 
ago, Cairo was a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activism. In the land of 
Lincoln, in 1960, there was a white citizens council that was doing its 
best to keep Cairo a segregated town, many years after Brown v. Board 
of Education. The head of the white citizens council was the white 
states attorney for Alexander County. Similar to many southern towns, 
Cairo closed its municipal swimming pool rather than allow black and 
white children to swim together. Today, I am proud to tell you that the 
mayor, the city treasurer, and the police chief of Cairo are all 
African-American.
  But the struggle for equal justice is not over. Last week, thousands 
of people from communities across America traveled by plane, car, and 
bus to Jena, LA, with a population of less than 3,000, to protest what 
appears to be separate and unequal justice. The facts in what has come 
to be known as the Jena 6 case sound disturbingly similar to so many 
cases from an era so many of us thought was long gone.

  One year ago, some African-American students at Jena's public high 
school asked the school administrators if they could sit under a shade 
tree outside the school, and they were told they could. For years, that 
tree outside their school had been known as the ``white tree.'' By 
custom, its shade was for white students only. Days after African-
American students dared to sit under that tree, nooses were hung from 
its branches--nooses. Local authorities dismissed that unmistakable 
reference to the terrorism of lynching as another youthful prank.
  Over the next 2 months, tensions rose at the high school. A series of 
fights between black and white students escalated. Each time, black 
students were punished more severely than the white students who took 
part in the same fights. Finally, last December, six young men, all 
African-American, were arrested and charged with attempted murder and 
other serious felonies that could send them to prison for a collective 
100 years.
  The problem of unequal justice is not confined to the South, and it 
is not limited to race. It is easy to condemn yesterday's wrongdoing, 
but the Little Rock Nine had the courage to oppose injustice in their 
own time. In our time, few people still condemn the overt racism of Jim 
Crow and ``whites only'' drinking fountains, but many still excuse and 
justify discrimination and unequal justice based on such distinctions 
as national origin and sexual orientation.
  I believe one day in the not-too-distant future, we will look back on 
these attitudes and wonder how we could have tolerated such 
discrimination and division.
  It is good to reflect on times past, the heroes and heroines of those 
eras,

[[Page S12022]]

but also to reflect on what America was like, how people reacted to 
that scene in Little Rock, AR, and how they reacted to Dr. Martin 
Luther King. It is easy now, some 50 years later, to suggest everybody 
knew it was the right thing to do in Little Rock and that everyone 
understood Dr. Martin Luther King's message was consistent with our 
values as Americans. But we know better. We know America was divided--
some cheering those students and some cheering the crowds.
  We learn from experience. I believe in redemption, personal and 
political. I think as each of us makes mistakes in our lives, we are 
oftentimes given a chance to correct those mistakes. I think when our 
Nation has made a mistake, whether it is slavery or racism, we are 
given a chance to correct that mistake. Today, as we celebrate the 50th 
anniversary of the Little Rock Nine, let us reflect on how far we have 
come.
  Melba Patillo Beals, a member of the Little Rock Nine, went on to a 
distinguished career as a journalist and author. In a book about her 
role in history, she wrote:

       If my Central High experience taught me one lesson, it is 
     that we are not separate. The effort to separate ourselves--
     whether by race, creed, color, religion or status--is as 
     costly to the separator as to those who would be separated. 
     The task that remains is to see ourselves reflected in every 
     other human being and to respect and honor our differences.

  The best way we can honor the courage of the Little Rock Nine is to 
follow their example--to have the vision and the courage to confront 
the injustices of our time.
  I yield the floor, and I 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. WEBB. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Casey). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. WEBB. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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