A Mighty Long Way: Prologue–Chapter 2

And I remembered watching her soft, jet black hair turn gray during that tumultuous and uncertain school year.

Arkansas governor Orval Faubus and staunch segregationists throughout Little Rock resisted with all their might.

White students ostracized and harassed us daily, and many teachers looked the other way.

After Faubus shut down all three of Little Rock’s high schools for the entire school year to avoid integration, just two of the original nine of us returned to Central.

For Mother, a kindhearted soul who was ushered through adulthood idolizing the glitz and glamour of black life portrayed in the Ebony and Sepia magazines of the 1950s and 1960s, it’s easier just to paint on her characteristic pink smile and never look back.

The stalwart civil rights organization was holding its annual meeting in Little Rock to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the city’s school desegregation battle.

My parents bequeathed to me the confidence of their fathers, both hardworking black entrepreneurs in control of their own economic lives.

But then again, that is the point of this book: to show that determination, fortitude, and the ability to move the world aren’t reserved for the “special” people.

I’m a classic busybody and a stickler for detail, which is why my comrades say they chose me to head the nonprofit foundation we created.

But my work as president of the Little Rock Nine Foundation brings me home often these days, and I inevitably wend my way down Interstate 630 to my old neighborhood.

When I was a child, it grew like weeds, so long and thick that I had trouble grooming it, and Mother had to plait it into neat braids or pull it into ponytails until I was well into junior high school.

Most of the houses were box-shaped with wooden frames, built along a grid of narrow dirt roads after World War II. They were modest but well kept.

He was a big, imposing man who stood over six feet tall with a heavyset frame, a gravelly voice, and a gruff disposition that matched his size.

Neither man kowtowed to anyone.

Grandpa Cullins had an intimidating—and sometimes crude—presence, which worked to his advantage when it came time to collect from someone who had hired him to do a job. He could be less than forgiving on money matters, even if the delinquent client was a house of worship.

Grandpa Cullins had dropped out of Philander Smith College in Little Rock to start his contracting business, but he was a highly intelligent man who stayed abreast of current events.

While I was nurtured by a cadre of well-educated and loving women, I spent a lot of time around the men on both sides of my family.

He seemed to have an innate understanding of economics and how much it influenced power.

I watched quietly as Big Daddy exchanged a few amicable words with the white man, who soon left to fill Big Daddy’s order without a hiss or word of disrespect.

I always gave up my bed and made pallets on the floor.

The lighter-skinned slaves (sometimes the master’s offspring) received slightly more favorable treatment, such as house jobs, while the darker-skinned slaves were relegated to the fields, fostering a divide that persists today.

Then, ever so discreetly, she pulled me closer to her and whispered: “Carlotta, we must be patient with ignorance and never, ever bring ourselves down to their level.”

I would hear those words many times, too, from Daddy, like when he didn’t respond or seem overly deferent to a white man who uttered something disrespectful: You are a Walls. You must never, ever stoop to the level of ignorance.

I came to believe that they—mean and intolerant people—were the ones with the problem and that I must never, ever stoop to their level.

Throngs of people scurried about in all directions.

There was a palpable sense of energy and purpose.

My aunt didn’t seem the least bit overwhelmed by the prospect of adding another child to her brood for three whole months.

She was a short, deep-brown-skinned woman with a happy disposition, always bubbly and sweet.

Sometimes, on stifling nights, I’d get out of bed and stand in front of the raised window to try to catch a breeze and watch the boats cruising down the river.

I’d seen television and magazine advertisements touting the bag’s strength as a model stood on top of it, but I grimaced when I saw my aunt acting out those ads.

Softball was as much a summertime staple as homemade ice cream around my neighborhood.

The disparities between Dunbar and Central can be traced to their beginnings.

Their brick-and-stone facades reflect the art deco style popular in the early twentieth century.

Its all-black staff was highly educated and helped to create an academically rigorous curriculum that in 1931 resulted in accreditation from the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

Students and staff from the campus could walk a short distance to patronize the array of black-owned and -operated businesses, which included barber and beauty shops, restaurants and cafés, doctors’ and lawyers’ offices, taverns, a cab stand, a liquor store, an insurance company, and more.

It instilled in its students an obligation to give back to that community.

She wove stories of her travels into her lectures and left us captivated with her descriptions of the people and places she had seen.

Not only did my parents graduate from Dunbar’s high school, but Mother also graduated from the junior college. After World War II, Daddy spent a year at the junior college on the GI Bill, too. They never lost their tremendous affection for their alma mater.

To this day, I usually accompany Mother to the school’s big biennial reunions, which draw hundreds of proud and accomplished former students and staff to rotating venues throughout the country.

Hall High would be built on the other side of the city in a more affluent white area, and no black students would be admitted.