The façade of Little Rock’s Central High School is as imposing today as it was 57 years ago when it sat at the intersection of school integration. The home of the Little Rock Nine still stands tall in American history as a symbol of African American insistence on equality and for civil rights. To celebrate the 57th anniversary of the Central High crisis, a well-known Hollywood producer, the daughters of the only white woman killed during the civil rights movement, and a little girl marked by Selma’s Sunday of blood will gather for a week of activities hosted by The Little Rock Central High National Historic Site.
Robin White, Superintendent of the Little Rock Central High National Historic Site, calls the guests “community servants who have made those sacrifices for the greater good of all.” Filmmaker Oliver Stone and Dr. Peter Kuznick will present the documentary, The Untold History of the United States, featuring President Dwight D. Eisenhower who deployed the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to Little Rock to integrate Central High School after Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus refused to allow the nine Black students to enter the previously all-white school. The children of Viola Liuzzo have continued to champion the work of their mother who left the safety of her Detroit home in 1965 to travel to help with voter registration efforts in Selma where she was murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Dozens lost their lives on “Bloody Sunday” and an eight year-old girl watched the stunning violence. Today, Joanne Bland is the former executive director of the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma.
As the Superintendent of one of the most popular sites on the National Parks Service roster, White and her staff selected the luminaries for the celebration. White sees her job as an opportunity to “supply multiple points of view.” She adds, “I feel we have so much work to do. I feel vulnerable, emotional, and grateful that I am afforded an opportunity to develop partnerships for the community to engage.”
Stone and Kuzicks’s documentary is part of the Reel Civil Rights Film Festival which is co-sponsored by the Central High Historic Site and the Little Rock Film Festival. White describes it as a way “to instill history into the community’s consciousness.” The festival features 11 filmmakers this year and begins Friday, September 19th.
White is one of the 10 or so Black women appointed Superintendent in the National Parks system which includes 400 locations. She is making a name for herself in Little Rock and beyond for her excellent programs to “ready the nation’s children to be decision makers at the table.” Ironically, the mother and grandmother oversees a national treasure recognized globally for its role in education.
The year was 1957 and the United States Supreme Court in its historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling had determined that schools were no longer to be segregated. In the three years since the ruling, the NAACP had registered Black children at schools all around the South, including Little Rock. It became ground zero for a nation awakening to the clarion call for change.
At Central High School today, students of varying races study and learn together. There are no federal troops needed to ensure the safe passage of young scholars through the hallways. It is powerful evidence of the sacrifices many brave men and women offered during the tumultuous Civil Rights Movement years, years Superintendent Robin White and the Little Rock Central High Historic Site are proud to preserve for the next generation.