Little Rock Nine

Virgil blossom was the superintendent of schools in Little Rock Arkansas during the integration crisis in 1957. My dad was a champion of equality. I mean, he always was. There was a mood within my family and within my community that things were changing, to be prepared for change, you must get the best education available. But we were told by Arkansas National Guard that we could not go in. It was just hard for me to believe because I'm 14 years of age and I had heard the governor come on TV a couple of nights prior who said he was calling out the Arkansas National Guard to protect the citizens of Little Rock, and I considered myself a citizen. So that was how naive I was at that time. 

The police were there and it was only 17 in the city that was there. It was a thousand people outside. It was very tough on my mother and my sister and me. Simply because nobody likes to pick up a phone and hear by tomorrow night at this time, both of you girls will be dead. In 57 58, I went to school every day. We had bodyguards, we were picked up every morning. By a military convoy, escorted to school escorted through the hallways, a guard outside of the classroom. At the time of the Little Rock 9, I was in that segregated school in Maryland. And my mother was adamant that I watch all of this on television. I watched orville fathers in the door of the school saying that these children weren't going to come in. And I realized that those children looked like me. 

The governor closed all the schools, black, white, and integrated. So you had kids that were joining the service, some who just dropped out, completely. And so it ran its scam. For me, I took good correspondence courses. All the work that I had put in and my home being bombed in 1960. All that diploma validated everything that I had gone through. I needed that diploma. I needed that to satisfy myself. I remembered that they were tenacious. They showed up every day. And so I knew that I had to show up every day. For us today, it is really important to see that any of us, however normal we might be, can actually do something with persistence and with conviction. It can actually change history for the better. 

Right now in the world that we live in, there's such fear of the other, whether it be about immigrants, whether it be about people in the Middle East, that we don't know a lot about and to start opening up those lines of education and becoming educated as American citizens and kind of looking at that and seeing and dispelling myths and trying to bring it into our schools. I think is something that's very important. I think it's important that we are able to learn how to take adversity and make it something powerful and draw from the integrity within ourselves as well as the people near us. These young people had tremendous support from their families and their communities, and in the 21st century, if it's anything that young people need, it's that kind of support. I think the actions of the 9 students have impacted my life and that they stood up for what they believed in. 

They took the heat and the anger and the wrath, in some ways of a nation. And stuck to their values, and that's inspirational for me, especially working in gay and lesbian rights. We can look at our the mayors of cities, we can look at who's heading our university, we have a lot of opportunities out there now that we did not have 50 years ago. This work is not done. It was just started in 57. And it went through to the present day we're having very crucial issues being decided in regards to affirmative action. I didn't know I was going to be this person that would be talked to 50 years later. I didn't know that I would receive the congressional gold medal. In 1999, I didn't know that I would have a stamp or a silver dollar commemorating what we did. We didn't do it for that. 

We did it because it was the right thing to do. If we can inspire some of these students to stay in school and do well in school and achieve those dreams that we have. It would be all. It's all worth it for me to talk about it. I think we need to honor their courage and their steadfastness. I think they're cool people and we're just honored to have them in Denver. I personally have a lot of gratitude for the Little Rock 9. I thank the Little Rock 9 because without them, a lot of the platform for what happened to me in my life and what's going to happen to my kids. It couldn't have occurred. Ernest green thelma mother should wear Elizabeth at birth, Terrence Roberts, carlotta, walls, Lanier, Gloria ray karlmark, Jefferson Thomas, Melbourne patello beals, mini Jean, Brown tricky. Thank you.