Opinion: 'What happened with all that hatred: It was intended to destroy us.'
By Jonathan Capehart Jonathan Capehart Opinion writer focusing on the intersection of social and cultural issues and politics Email Bio Follow Opinion writer April 11 at 9:09 AM [Listen to the entire"Voices of the Movement" podcast series]
BROWN-TRICKEY: I’m one of the Little Rock Nine, and the Little Rock Nine are a group of young people who desegregated Central High School in 1957. So it’s almost in the Middle Ages — it happened a long time ago. BROWN-TRICKEY: I think that was the lynching of Emmett Till. I think that was where — he was one month older than I was. And so deep in our hearts — mine — I thought this is crazy stuff. And I am just as unsafe as he was. And so it was about time had come to try to stop some of this stuff. Segregation was everywhere, and meanness was everywhere, and violence was everywhere. So wherever you moved, you could touch anywhere, you would be touching it.
Daisey Bates, president of the Arkansas NAACP, recruited and vetted nine students to participate in the integration. And then she trained them on how to handle hostile situations.BROWN-TRICKEY: Well you walk into this space. Because you choose and the thought ... So everybody said, “You are so courageous.” Well I wasn’t courageous when I signed that sheet to go to Central. My two friends and I, we said, “Oh we can walk and it’s simple and we’re just going to sign up.
BROWN-TRICKEY: What happened with all that hatred? It was intended to destroy us. It was intended to discourage us. It was to tell us that we were worthless and really what it did was the absolute opposite. We didn’t have to go back on the second try when we were turned away. We didn’t have to go back on that third try. But we we chose, so that’s where the courage kicks in later. There is no courage at the beginning. In my opinion, the courage ends up being defiance rather courage.
And so every time I sit down — at least I try every time I sit down — with one of these icons who became an icon at a young age. I want to know what what did that feel like? And what did that do to you? CAPEHART: In the end, Minnijean and most of the Little Rock Nine didn’t finish their education at Central High School.
Her name is Carolyn McKinstry, she was a 14-year-old when one September morning in 1963, just two weeks after the famed March on Washington, her church, the famed 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., was bombed. When I passed them, I spoke to them. They were prepping and talking, but I didn’t stay there to talk because I had until 10:35 to have all of my data ready.
We had had over 60 unsolved bombings in Birmingham, and no one had ever been brought to justice for those bombings. And it appeared that black people were just powerless to do anything about it. No one had been brought to justice. So here is the first bombing where someone has been killed. And we waited. No one was arrested after the first year. When they were renovating the building, someone said well they just have never taken anybody white to justice or a trial for the death of someone black.
But I realized, at that moment, I think it may have been a second bombing, the one in April of ’64, that I realized that I had felt very sheltered and protected with my brothers . . . you know if you bother me I’ve got four brothers that you have to watch out for. But after the bombing [at] the church, I lost that feeling, that sense of security.
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