Chairman of the board of the naacp. Interim president , ceo and to the late elsy and bates, i bring you grievance. To our mayor, the city manager bruce moore, the city board of directors of little rock, to the sixth Anniversary Committee and most of all the little rock nine and their families, we welcome you to this 60 Educational Forum for the city of little rock and the state of arkansas. We thank you for being here and hope something is said or done that will give you a better understanding when you leave here today and let me digress for a moment and say that naacp was the organization that worked and spearheaded the little rock 9. A terrible time in our history. I remind you this was way before the march on washington. Its way before in 1964 civil rights act. Its way before the 1965 Voting Rights act. These young people wanted to do to get an education. Thats all theyre aspiring to do. But our system, at that time said you will not be able to go to school based upon a decision by the United States Supreme Court. However, thoroughgood marshal, who went on to become a Supreme Court justice, along with the parents of the little rock 9 went through some of the turbulent time recorded in the history of america that the court said they were entitled to go to school. Yet this government system in arkansas said no, you will not go to school at central high school. Imagine those young people set out to get an education. Thats all they wanted to do was get an education and was denied that opportunity and paid a tremendous debt that all of us in this room is enjoying today that we owe them a great, great gratitude for their contribution for what they went through to make it possible for us to be in this room today. We need give them an applause. Now i wont prolong the time i have the task of introducing our speaker. Our speaker is no stranger. His dad was one of the lawyers along with thur good marshal who work would the naacp to make it possible. Our speaker is a sitting judge, not retired judge, a sitting judge for the state of arkansas, the city of little rock. One of three juvenile judges th thatter day to day took on the task of being a surrogate for young people who has lost their way and is sit in the court room and offer up many, Many Solutions to the problems that the young people face of the day. And that is none other than judge wylie jr. He has his education degree. You know he had to have that in order to be a judge. But we need to talk about the many young people that has come before him in his court and he has made a conscious decision and worked hard so they can be productive citizens. The judge has served as a sitting judge since 1993 for the current term on a day to day task doing the same thing for people today that the little rock nine was doing when they were trying to get an education is redirect young people and get them on the right course and for that we should be grateful to judge wylie bran jr. We run a tight schedule. So i am going to move out of the way and let him come up and begin to give us our Opening Statements and our purpose. Judge wylie bran jr. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Charles. It is my privilege today to participate in this 60th anniversary celebrating and or commemorating and or kmiserating about the events surrounding the integration of Little Rock High School in 1957. Things such as the curage of the little rock nine and that of their families is something that is worthy of celebration and praise. Things search as governors defiance of the rights of the negro students of the United States constitution. His defiance of federal court orders and the racial hatred and mob violence directed at the 9 and others are things that need to be called outfor the acts of cowardess which they were and dually remembered for postator and im afraid were starting to creep down that road again but maybe more on that before i finish. The theme of the 60th anniversary is reflections of progress and fairly recent events certainly give us a lot to reflect upon at this time and the issue of progress is up for mixed reviews. When the blockbuster decision of brown verses board of education was issued in may 1957, a decisioning which ordered the end of statesponsored segregated schools, the Supreme Court had this to say about the importance of an education and listen to this. Reflect on this. Today education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments, compulsery School Attendance laws both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument and awakening the child to Cultural Values and preparing him for later professional training and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. And these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the tuntd of an education. Such an opportunity where the state has undertaken to provide it is a right that must be made available to all on equal terms. And i would submit to you today that those words have as much vitality today, perhaps even more than when they were uttered in 1954. Brown went on to talk about how segregated schools were harmful to black children and again let me read briefly from brown. To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications, solely because of their rage generates a feeling of infear yort as to their status in the community that may effect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to be undone. [ applause ] the impact is greater when it has the sanction of law. For the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting this isnt supposed to be happening. Is denoting the inferiorty of the negro group. It effects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to retard the educational and Mental Development of negro children. And to deprive them i dont understand this. And to deprive them of some of the benefits they would have received in a racially integrated School System. Im glad im done with that part. That time of brown thurogood marshal had had established himself at the time of brown, he had established himself as the chief legal strategist for the naacps Legal Defense fund and he believed that the only way to end racism in america was to have an integrative america where people would just see each other as their fellow human being as opposed to just some other person. He also wanted black people to have equal Educational Opportunities and both of those objectives could only be accomplished if from the earliest ages children went to school with one another, sat next to each other, played with each other, and had had meaningful interaction on a truly integrated basis. In the aftermath of the brown decision, a group of black arkansas associate would the naacp, which included daisy bates, reverend bates and my father, wylie branten sr, then a young lawyer in pine bluff decided to press the issue of integration in little rock but Little Rock School district had had come up with the plan of gradual integration but the arkansas naacp, including the Little Rock Branch thought the School Districts plan did not go far enough or fast enough. It was deliberate speed as in slow speed. Not liking the School Districts plan, the arkansas naacp had my father to file a lawsuit on behalf of the neego plaintiffs seeking the immediate and full integration of the Little Rock School district. That lawsuit eventually became known as cooper versus aaron. It ended up in the United States Supreme Court in 1958. And after the lawsuit was filed in january 1956 my father did enlist the support of other lawyers associate would the naacp. Prior to the and decided that the plan was an acsecable they paved the way for two events to unfold the way they did in 1957. First, they adopted the little rock plan and made it the order of the court. Therefore if anyone sought to interfere with the little rock plan going forward, that person or persons would be violating an existing court order and second the federal court retained jurisdiction of the case, now a court order, the plaintiffs could seek immediate relief in Court Without having to start all over from scratch. Miss mini jean brown tricky, mr. Earnest green, ms. Thelma mothershed wear, ms. Melba beales, ms. Carleta walls beer and Jefferson Thomas who passed away in 2010. When they tried to blocked a mission to the central rock high school, he was immediately in violation of a federal court order. Because of the earlier lawsuit filed by my father, they were able to go right back to court and seek enforcement the Enforcement Authority of the federal government. It was the erupting crisis in the fall that got mr. Marshal more directly involved in the case. He never publicly vilified the courts. He actually understood his role as president and how our system of Government Works and ultimately he made the decision to call out the federal troops to enforce the authority of the federal court and to enforce the kaurn Constitutional Rights of the nine to attend little rock central. There were many things the little rock 9 did to advance civil rights in america and the world. Because of their extraordinary curage caught on photographs and moving film, the actions of the angry crowd towards the little rock 9, towards the children shamed america before the world. Unfortunately the United States had to be shamed by many more acts of violence before the passage of significant civil rights legislation in the mid1960s on the administration of linden baynes johnson. These attempted to address Voting Rights, fair housing, public accommodations and equal employment opportunities. And in fact weve seen substantial progress for many of the groups. Daisy and elsy bates, lawyers wylie branlten senior and Thurgood Marshal and the uthsers on the team and the community which supported, protected and encouraged them, all of them played an Important Role in our struggle for civil and human rights. But all is not well. We reflect on this question and take little rock as an example. The Little Rock School district is overwhelmingly populated by black students in a city where we have a majority white population. If brown tells us that segregation harms negro students in 1957, are our students now being harmed in 2017 by a resegregated School System which has been caused in some measure by white flight which began with brown and governmental policies . Just something to think about. Is the trend towards Charter Schools and freedom of choice harming the Educational Opportunities of the children who are left in the regular schools . Something to think about. And whats up with the states take over the Little Rock School dist rlrict and the disenfranchisement of students to pick the superintendent of their choice . These are troubling issues and what about racism . Whether it be the up front in your face racism or perhaps the more insidious form of racism known as implicit bias or unconscious bias. Up until the last president ial election the overt racism had more or less gone into the closet and because was expressed by only a fringe element. With statements of the high political leaders, overt racism has gained new respectability. Implicit or unconscious bias has never gone away. Sure, barack obama was elected president for two terms of the United States, which was something i had never expected to see in my lifetime. While there are many reasons why the last president ial election turned out the way it did and many of those reasons are still being uncovered and desieferred, i submit one of the factors that played into our most recent election was a racially motivated, either by overt or implicit bias back lash against president obama. We are at another major cross roads in our history which challenge the core democracy and freedom. We need remember the grace, curage and determination displayed by the little rock 9 when they faced the Political Forces of the state and the angry mob back in 1957. There is much work that remains to be done in our ongoing quest for equal justice under the law. Thank you. [ applause ] frrsz [ applause ] why dont i give you a couple of seconds to reflect on those words. What beautiful, beautiful presentation this morning and i think we all kind of share those feelings that our judge expressed so well. Thank you. My name is janice f kerny and im not as tall as you are. My name is janice f kerny and i will be the moderator for this mornings first panel and i would like to first of all thank the city of little rock and specifically bruce moore. Who i had never worked with up close until i became a part of the committee and i thank del charls for that. I am so impressed with his leadership style and his ability to pull things together in spite of so many different personalities that he had to work with. And i think had the most important glue to that whole thing was knowing that we were celebrating the little rock 9 and he had the whole city behind him in that and i just give him so much credit for his ability to do that. We have some amazing panelists this morning. Who will be talking about where we were before 1957. Most of them do not need any introducti introductions. Ill give you a very brief introduction on the two that have not spoken this morning. But let me open up and say that our panel is based on the fact that nothing in our world happens in a vacuum. Arkansas, america, the world didnt suddenly wake up in september 1957 and find an imperfect world. It was there already. There was injustice, there was inhumanity, uncivil rights, unnecessary poverty, discrimination, inequities and everything from schools to hospitals to government jobs. All of this happened before september 1957. Before those nine brave children went into central high school. So i do think that its important for those of us who know from common logic that every action is based on another action or inaction. That we have to tell the whole truth. As the judge mentioned. We have a responsibility to and i think this will be a good start. So thats what well spend the next 45 minutes discussing. And im going to start out with just one question. For ms. Green washington. Who shes not just ernie greens big sister. She has a long resume of important work that shes done over the years in education and history and i think those are two extremely important areas for us to be involved in. So im going to open it up to her and ask her to talk about what do you think was one of the most important precursors to the 1957 crisis . If you had had a crystal ball, a week, a month, a year before the children, the nine children went into central high, what would you have seen to make you know that little rock was headed to this crescendo that we call the 1957 crisis at central high . Thank you. Its such a pleasure to be home again and to participate in this really, really important event. Im going to go back a few decades. In the 40s my our mother and im the sister of earnest green. Our mother and our aunt were both teachers at dunbar high school, that was the colored high school and my alma mater. They were a part of the group of teachers who, in the 40s, filed a lawsuit against the Little Rock School board for equal pay for black teachers. At that time black teachers were paid far less than white teachers with the same credentials. As a part of that lawsuit the naacp and i must mention my brother reminded me this morning that our mother was a life long member of naacp and at that time dutfully paid the 5 a year membership. The naacp supported the Little Rock School teachers in their lawsuit by sending their Legal Counsel Thurgood Marshal to represent the teachers. Well, my part of that, i was about four years old. And i remember the conversations that my mother and i had about this lawsuit. At one of Thurgood Marshals visits, we were asked to host him. Why . Because none of the hotels by law would accommodate colored guests. Well, again i mention i was four and at four you know a Little Something but not a lot. I remember in the conversation my mother said that Thurgood Marshal would fly into little rock. Well, during that time people travelled by trains for the most part and air travel there were propellor planes. Jet planes had not been invented yet. And i recall standing on my step stool at our back window waiting for the plane to land in our backyard. Well, when the door bell rang and my mother announced that attorney marshal was here, i was absolutely appalled that he would deny me the opportunity to see his plane land. In fact i told his son years later that i dont think i ever forgave your father for disappointing me. But that lawsuit was won by the Little Rock School teachers and that group of teachers collected enough money that year to pay the salary of the plaintiff, sue cowen williams, for whom the library is named here in little rock. That was something that i will never forget. The film hast night also reminded me of Something Else. It ended with the actor who played Thurgood Marshal at the white water fountain. When i was growing up, they had two water fountains in the basement. One marked colored and the other marked white and i was learning to read and i asked my mother which one i should drink from and she said which ever one you wish. I often thought of what someone in the last administration said. When they go low, you go high. And thats exactly what was practiced in my growing up. One other vent that occurred to me and this because i think im staying that newly refurbished holiday inn across from Mcarthur Park. When my brothers and i were very young, one sunday our mother and father took us to the park to hear the band concert. As we approached the curb, we were met by policeman who said we dont allow coloreds to listen. My mother and father said my mother said well find Something Else to do this afternoon. I thought about what maya angelou said once and that is i dont remember what you said. I dont remember what you did. But ill never forget how you made me feel. And as i passed by Mcarthur Park yesterday i remembered that i had never gone past there since then until yesterday. So again its growing up during that time i like to refer to it as inspite of. Because in spite of the laws that prohibited us from doing things, we were always supported by our families, our community, our church to think that we could always excel in whatever we wanted to do if we worked hard enough. [ applause ] thank you. And she will be talking later about one of the projects that has i think has really been a big part of your life. Shell talk about that a little later. I had going to ask griffe stockly to come up and answer that same question about what things were going on. Griffe is a local author and historian and he has devoted his life to writing about and researching civil rights history and hes done many, many books on the it subject. Thank you very much for this introduction and amviting me to participate on this panel that obviously it is a very moving experience for all of us. As i understand it, my task is to talk briefly in terms of what happened before 1957. There are a number of ways to do this and obviously im only going to be able to touch on part of it. But im going to begin by reading a sentence from an editorial in the Arkansas State press on march 20th, 1959, by elsy bates about the fire at the Arkansas Negro Boys Industrial School outside of little rock that burned to death 21 boys locked inside a dormitory. Mr. Bates wrote and im quoting here we wonder if the white man in the south who has set the pattern for the negro to live by can find any consolation for the irreparable damage that his system has caused. And accompanying headline read is seg areregation worth this . And mr. Baltes was acknowledgin that he ordered the print and negative of one thfr victims to be destroyed. The remains were quote too gruesome to be filed in the morgue unquote. In other words what conceivable benefit could result from a system of White Supremacy that resulted in such horrible deaths for these 21 ad lessant children, some of whom had had no place to live and some who were merely guilty of petty crimes such as stealing a bicycle. As we today again honor the curage of the little rock nine and all those who assisted them, surely it is our obligation to continue to explore how much of our racial history has been covered up in arkansas or misrepresented. Let me give you an example or two of what im talking about. As the pressure on the little rock white power structure mounted in 1956, Margaret Ross smith, editor of the plasky county Historical Review and who contributed a history column for the arkansas giz etwrote a lengthy article tielded if negroes feel the writing of their history has not been assumed by white people, then qualified negroes should undertake the task. She surely knew that the deck was stacked in arkansas in the south. Enin a book titled land of opportunity. One familys quest for the dream and report by william adler, dr. Calvin smith, who i believe was the first African American hired as a professor at Arkansas State was interviewed for background material about growing up in marianna in the heart of the arkansas delta and incidentally my home town. The historian dr. Smith told author dr. William adler that the books i got where i graduated had nothing on black history. To read them was to reinforce your nonexistence. This omission was hardly an oversight. In his 2005 book, the southern past, a clash of race and memory, National Historian wrote quote the North Carolina and arkansas history commissions made their first foras into marking and preserving historic shrines as they were charged to do by their charters. They inevitably focussed on sites hallowed by whites. Black newspapers, institutional records and private correspondence went uncollected. The void in the collections of the south impeded opportunities to understand the southern racial order from any perspective other than its architects. Moreover, it twisted and constrained all subsequent Historical Research on African Americans in the region effectively erasing black historical agencies. Im going to skip that part. In my introduction to black boys burning, the 1959 fire that Arkansas Negro Boys Industrial School published this summer by the University Press of mississippi, i wrote in the introduction is elsy and his wife daisy bates knew only too well, White Supremacy had been carried out over time by slavery, bad science, murder rape, terrorism, lynching, massacres, mass incarceration, penj, disfranchisement, racial cleansing, arson, racial kuv innocence, predatory lending, loan discrimination, redlining, blockbusting, segregation, intimidation, humiliation, discrimination, denial of free speech, termination from employment,ing a truly massive debt to Financial Resources for services lawfully intended for black citizens. Quarantine rather than effective treatment of black persons diagnosed with tuberculosis. Paternalism in a civil and criminal Justice System that routinely denied African Americans due process and equal protection of the law. As an integral part of impediments to African American rights, the official and unofficial writing of the souths racial past sometimes resembled propaganda rather than history in order to justify the action of white southerners. Not with standing the carnage and devastation caused by the civil war, accounts of the so h souths struggle and its defeat over time have often been transformed into an occasion for nostalgia, reenactments in legends, rather than attempts to come to terms with its actual history. My reason for listing all these ways at White Supremacy has been implemented in arkansas is to suggest the obvious. That the lead up to the constitutional crisis in 1957 at central high was not just about any quality in education in a poor Southern State but grew out of arkansass racial history beginning with slavery and coming forward. As another way of thinking about our racial history before 1957, let me review some unnerving parallels. Going to read an abbreviated entry from the arkansas slave narratives which are the interviews of former slaves by individuals employed by the Works Progress administration during the great depression. You can go online and read the arkansas interviews. For far too long the interviews have been ignored by arkansas historians. This is begun to change fortunately. The following is from an interview of peter brown, age 86 who was born outside of pine bluff in a classic understatement, mr. Brown said my remembrance of slavery is not at all favorable. I heard the master and over seer swooping the slaves before day. They had stakes fixed in the grounld and tied them down on their stomachs stretched out and beat them with a bull whip. They would break their blisters on them with wide oak paddles that had holes in it so that it would suck. I heard that going on when i was a child morning after morning. Unquote. And lets fast forward to what was occurring that arkansas negro boys school. This is from an interview in 2009 with a man who remembered his experiences at the Negro Boys Industrial School in 1959. I need to add that frank lawrence, whose brother lindsey died in the fire and i did the interview together. But mr. Nashz said and im quoting here quote id gotten about five or six whipings. He said boys were whipped if you wet the bed, if you didnt pick enough cotton, if you got to fighting, if you tried to run off. He said he quote was held down by other inmates and hit with a big old strap as wide as your hand. Hit you 10 or 15 licks, had boys hold you down, strapped tore your butt up, unquote. An entire century had passed and black people this time children were still being whipped. Now this week in 2017 we read in the paper about how and i quote senator Stephanie Flowers from pine bluff who said about the states juvenile jails we built a school to prison pipeline. Until we acknowledge and begin to analyze the aggregate consequences of our implementation of White Supremacy in all its historical and psychological manifestations, we dont stand much chance of understanding and internalizing its irreparable damage. As it so happens, the history of the Arkansas Negro Boys Industrial School between 1923 and 1968 when a federal judge finally signed an order after delay after delay ending segregation in the boys socalled Industrial Schools thanks to john walkers dogged litgations is a textbook example of how difficult these issues are. Now that the jury the segregation has ended have we solved the issues of White Supremacy, how easy it is to ignore what goes on outside of little rock. We would deceive ourselves by thinking thank you that we can understand our racial history in arkansas for a single pane of glass, for example education. The shocking disparities between black and white institutions in arkansas were a consequence of the commitment of the white power structure to maintain White Supremacy for as long as politically possible. In other words, the conditions at other black institutions and the attitudes of the white power structure towards them were a product of quote Structural Racism which scholars have defined as a normalization of an array of dynamics, historical, cultural institutional and interpersonal that routinely advantages whites while producing cumulative and adverse outcomes for people of color. Let me conclude by saying Structural Racism encompasses the entire system of White Supremacy. Infused and defused in all aspects of society, including our history, culture, politics and economics. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you, griffe, very much. A lot of good history there. I am going to ask the judge to change up a little bit. I have a pet peeve and that one is that our children theres like a list of maybe 10 history subjects that theyre given to talk about usually or if theyre asked to write about it. Theres not a lot that they know as people who really made a difference before 1957 but there are loads and loads of people that have. And i would love for you to come up here and talk about some people who made a difference and probably things could have been even worse than they were had those people not done that. So would you do that for us. So i grew up in the segregated south in pine bluff. All of arkansas was and all of the south was. But we always had people that we looked up to, certainly in my own family there was my family that we were an educated family. Folks had gone to college and what not. We had our own businesses. So we had some role models withinory family. So i never had to look beyond my family for some role models and that was a good thing for my development. But if you look at some of the i want to say that Say Something about some of the lawyers and not just in arkansas because my dad was typical of many lawyers across the south. If you were a black lawyer in those days you were automatically by definition a civil rights lawyer. One of the things justice martishall would say is i go in these communities and i do what i do and i get on a car or train and i leave town and i leave the local lawyer there. They kind of showed that last night if you saw that movie Marshall Marshall but that was the reality. And you could name one of the things my dad always did was to go through a litany of the lawyers who cooperated with the naacp around the nation who were willing to take on these difficult cases, often times they didnt pay any money, often times they put themselves at great risk, yet they were trying to give people legal representation in times when legal representation was hard to come by. And also im going off subject but i really do want to say we really do need recognize the work for the advancement of color people and the Legal Defense fund. The naacp was founded around 1919 and theyd begin to assault Racial Injustice in america and they quickly learned to do it in a legal way. And later on they really became separate entities. But they had a strategy of attacking racism and oppression around the nation. So the little rock case is kind of brown verses board of education was an naacp effort. Some of the cases attacking Higher Education before that where they attacked the separate but equal doctrine and were able to get blacks into some professional schools or law school or what not work. But brown was the blockbuster case and but it was a strategy. One of the things about little rock is they didnt think anything was going to happen in little rock. As compared to the rest of the south they knew something might jump out in alabama, georgia, mississippi but so things unexpectedly went off the track in the falloff 57 much to their surprise. Little rock really wasnt on the strategy board of the national naacp office. It started out as a surprise. Little rock wasnt on the strategy board of the effort. It started with a local effort. My father as ab attorney and local black plaintiffs they fowchbd, they had no idea it morphed into what it morphed into, in 1957. I would say thank god for the naacp. Thank you, judge. My question to each of you, we cant go back and change anything thats happened in history. Weve had to struggle through it and will continue to struggle through it. If you could talk to me about one thing that we as americans, arkansans, southerners, could have done, so that there would not be a celebration of the little rock nine today, that we could have prevented the pain, the struggles weve gone through, america is supposed to be or we are one of the greatest countries in the world. What is it we could have done to preclude this . I want to start with chris. Obviously is my mic on . Can you turn it up . Obviously, as a white person from marianna, arkansas, we could have done so much more than we did. We know our history and this is what obviously im interested in now, we know that so much of our history has been is simply wrong. I can tell you some things that are going on now that finally we are beginning to change we know for example i was going to say this if i had more time. We no longer write what happened in elaine, in the surrounding area in Phillips County in 1919 was an attempted quote insurrection by blacks, but was a massacre by whites, whose dimensions are still being investigated. We know and write, for example, about for example in 1949, at the arkansas social work conference it was revealed that arkansas white School Boards diverted 4 million 250,000 intended for black schools. We know thanks to the first black ph. D. At the universe of arkansas at fayetteville who did a thesis at the Industrial School in 1956, that the conditions at the socalled schools were horrific, that the boy, im quoting here, besides brutal whippings, many boys go with ration for clothes and neither half wear socks nor underwear during the winter of 1955, 1956, when this study was in progress. I could go on with his criticisms of the negroe boys Industrial School. This was a prison work farm for black adolescents, not an institution to train or rehabilitate children. Let me conclude what im saying by noting we have begun to change this through a number of ways. This is something that i think we can begin to be proud of. There are a number of, i guess, state institutions, which now have bugun to tell the truth about our arkansas racial history. What we should have done was never to commit the sort of things im talking about. What we can do, what we can do is Work Together to tell our true history about what we did do, and this is something that i would not be able to name i would probably leave them out, for example the Butler Center for arkansas studies. We know other institutions, arkansas studies institute, we are doing research to tell the truth about the elaine race massacre. Theres so much more we can do and will be doing. I hope as students in the audience, you will realize you will have an opportunity to be a part of rewriting our history which in fact so much of it was propaganda to justify our behavior. Ill close there. Thank you very much. [ applause ] i just want to let people know there are books that will be on sale, autographed books at 1 00. In the library mic off does he need to repeat it . Would you please repeat it . Okay. At 1 00 this afternoon, at the central high library, there will be a book signing by authors including myself, one about the fire at the Arkansas Negro Boys Industrial School. Theres several other authors who have written, i think, some really excellent works, which go back and get our racial history that we never recorded or that we recorded wrongly, and hopefully youll have an opportunity to look at some of the books and actually maybe buy some. Thank you. Thank you. In response to the question, what perhaps could have been done, that provokes a lot of thought. One of the things i thought about, i mentioned earlier that i was a student at dunbar high school. Our football team, the bearkats were allowed to use centrals football field on fridays. Through the years i was at dunbar, we would walk by central, going to the football field, and looking at that building and realizing that building was three times the size of our high school and you sort of figured there were three times as much things going on as in our high school. I thought about Something Else that preceded that time. I mentioned earlier about my mother being a teacher and teachers at dunbar. Teachers at that time, black teachers, although they were by law to receive graduate degrees, were not allowed to go to colleges to southern colleges. So the state paid for teachers to do away in the summer for six weeks to earn graduate degrees at the university of wisconsin, the university of iowa, the university of new york, and so forth. So all that, to me, says that i guess theres a time and a place for everything. And i think what occurred in 57, was accumulation of all those things that had occurred over the years, whether it was the teachers being sent away in the south, our passing by to play on the football field only on fridays, that by 57, its kind of like a cauldron, in which the liquid is bubbling up. By 57, it was boiling over. So that was the time for action to be taken. Thank goodness for lawyers like Thurgood Marshall, wiley blanton sr. And others who came to the rescue and saw to it that central high and, of course, that meant that other schools eventually in arkansas, would finally be allowed to accept everybody as it should have been all along. [ applause ] i love my country. Its a great country. But my love and my patriotism for my country does not make me blind to its many many faults. America was founded on two org sins. The first sin was the taking of this land from an indigenous people. [ applause ] the second sin was slavery. Now, were not giving the country back and dont put me on the boat and send me back to africa, im here, but this creates a duty in america for to seek redemption, forgiveness and atonement. Thats what makes america have a special obligation. We have things to pay for. Thats why i think we do have a special duty. Its not because were so wonderful and that we are blessed from above, its because we have some things we need pay back. We need to make some things right. The only way we can do that is to provide more leadership in the world, more leadership here at home. Before i get political, let me shut up and sit down. [ applause ] would you all please put your hands together for this amazing panel . [ applause ] i will need to ask mr. Terrence if we have time for questions. Any have yes. Let me give her one of the microphones. Thank you. My name is dr. Carolyn. Im here from oakland, california. I travel with a group called soldier into the past and we work educating about civil rights and social justice. We do a class on the little rock nine, which is four hours. And each time i hear that arkansas was a moderate state and you didnt think it was going to happen here. I was born in arizona, my parents are from fordyce. I dont understand what a moderate Southern State is and why you thought it would not happen here. Its a relative concept. Relative to alabama and sweetwater. Its just a relative concept. Relative to alabama, relative to mississippi, relative to georgia. Certainly, terrible things have happened in arkansas. I think in arkansas we didnt consider it like the deep deep south, getting kind of to the midwest. A matter of relativity. Anyone else . One more question. Yes, maam. Thank you for your questions. Hello. My name is nora. I want to say thank you so much for coming. Im a recent graduate of the Clinton School of Public Service and now a doctor in education candidate at ulr. My question is, it is sad to say that we are currently, as young adults, living similar pasts as the days of segregation back in the 50s and 60s. What is a word of advice you would give for me being a minority and muslim in america or any other minorities currently . What word of advice would you give us to keep pushing and keep achieving our goals . Thank you for your question. A couple words. Never give up. You will win. Vote. Get your friends to vote. Were in the jam were in because folks didnt turn out and vote the way they should be voting. [ applause ] i would think that all of us need to relearn our history and question what we have been taught in the past and realize that there are better days ahead. [ applause ] thank you all for your questions. Im going to close by just saying that i also am the founding ceo of something called the celebrate maya project. We celebrate mya angelous life and her contributions here in arkansas. This weekend we brought in a Wonderful Group of children, students, im sorry, students from the marvel elaine school district. They have been here and they saw miss carlotta wall yesterday and hopefully they will get a chance to see some of you. I want them to stand up and introduce yourselves all together, not each other. [ applause ] we had a wonderful day yesterday and we look forward to the rest of this day. This has been wonderful, thank you all. Ive learned so much. Thank you. One more, one more. I would not be able to go back to Bowie State University in maryland if i didnt do this. We have been privileged to work on a curriculum to a film, daisy bates, first lady of little rock produced by sharon la cruz. The college of education has been working on this for the past three or four years. It has just been completed. I was allowed to introduce it to you, the first audience to hear about this, and i will have flyers with the abstract on the table in the back. There are still copyright issues being developed because it will be online, along with the film, daisy bates, first lady of little rock. In about another month, please google the film title and you will be able to acquire the curriculum and the film. So we are extremely pleased to honor daisy bates by completing this curriculum. Thank you. [ applause ] friday, on cspan3, director of national intelligence, stan coates, nsa director, Michael Rogers and fbi director, christopher ray, discuss the intelligence act, fisa. Parts are up for renewal. Live coverage begins at 8 30 eastern time here on cspan3. At cspan. Org and on the cspan radio app. This weekend on American History tv on cspan3, saturday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on the civil war, kelly misourik, for their own cause, southern morale after black troops were assigned to guard southern prisoners. One might say thats why they those chose black troops because in the 19th century most believed black men werent talented enough to fight and werent brave enough to fight. Mississippi professor ashley, on free trade in california. The indian men are dressed really really nicely, like a band. They were allowed to ride horses, generally forbidden to indians within the california system. Secondly, they kind of dressed pretty nice. And 7 00 p. M. , on oral histories, we continue our series on photojournalists with david valdez, former director of the White House Photo office under president george h. W. Bush. If i Say Something about his hair and take this photo and his hair looks nice, no one will ever believe this wasnt set up. I just took the photo and wound up running two full pages in life magazine. Over the next 20 years or so, it was in the best in life and classic moments in life. In 2011, it was selected in the issue, one of the best photos in life magazine for the past 75 years. American history tv, all weekend, every weekend, only on cspan3. This weekend on book tv live coverage of the 2017 festival of books in nashville, starting saturday, 11 00 a. M. Eastern with biographer, jonathan and ali, a life. And democracy in change, the deep history of the radical right stealth plan for america and Eric Erickson author of before you wake, life lessons of a father to his children. On sunday, our live coverage continues at 1 p. M. P. M. Eastern with the author and the story of american women, code breakers of world war ii. National book award finalist, Patricia Bell scott firebrand and first lady, portrait of a friendship and struggle for social justice. Creative writing professor, people are going rise like the waters upon your shore, a of american rage. Watch our live coverage of the 2017 southern festival of books in nashville this weekend on cspans book tv. In this next part of the forum on desegregation of little roczen tr rock high school, they shut down the schools rather than integrate. This is an hour and 20 minutes