Fire from the Rock (25 page)

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Authors: Sharon Draper

BOOK: Fire from the Rock
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As the smoke from the bus exhaust filled the air, the cameras were left to film only the filth and nastiness left behind. Sylvia ran to the bathroom and threw up.
Thursday, September 5, 1957
It turns out the other eight students
showed up at another door of Central High yesterday. They were turned away and asked to leave. Elizabeth, who had not received the message about when and where to meet yesterday, had arrived at the school building without the others, which left her unprotected and at the mercy of the mob.
Her picture is on the front page of today's paper-probably every paper in America, Gary says.
People from the neighborhood have been in and out of the house all day, offering advice or encouragement or opinions. No one, not even me, seems to have talked to any of the Nine, as they are now being called. They are not answering phone calls or coming to the door. The entire colored community is upset. Some think we ought to quit and not try anymore, while others want to rush out and fight all white people. I've been trembling and nauseous all day. I keep thinking about Elizabeth, praying for her, understanding only a tiny portion of her pain. If I had been in her place, I don't think I could have been so brave. I
know
I couldn't have.
It's quiet at Central today, I heard. None of the nine will be going to school anywhere today. I wonder how they feel.
 
 
Friday, September 13, 1957
Today is Friday the thirteenth.
The old folks says it's a day of bad luck, but I don't see how much worse it can get here. All the kids I know are going to school in Little Rock except for the nine Negro students who want to go to Central High. They sit in limbo-waiting for a decision, for safety. Everybody has an opinion, although only white opinions are printed in the newspaper. There's all kind of political stuff going on, some of which I don't understand. The governor huffs and puffs and makes public statements about how proud he is to be from Arkansas and how he's not going to let the president tell him what to do. Judges are saying integration must happen. Politicians are saying it will not.
Good old Governor Faubus went on television again tonight. He's demanding that the federal government halt its demand for integration. Can a governor do that? I thought everybody had to obey the president.
The reporter said that, because of a court order, Governor Faubus had removed the National Guard from in front of Central and replaced them with the Little Rock police. After guns and helmets and bayonets, he's using our little police force? I stared at the TV screen in disbelief.
Has the governor seen our cops? They're fine with one or two robbers or burglars, I'm sure. But a mob?
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1957
Today's the day, Sylvie. They're going in, and I'm going to watch it happen. You want to go with me?” Gary asked, his voice a challenge. They stood in front of Mann High School, waiting for the bell to ring.
“You want me to skip school?” Sylvia asked him incredulously.
“You scared?”
“Mama will kill me!”
“So stay here and watch it on the evening news. I'm leaving now. See you at home.” He started to walk away.
“Wait, Gary.” Sylvia had never done anything like this in her life. But maybe it was time to grow up.
I'm
going! “Let's go!” Sylvia said. She didn't look back as they hurried down the street.
Crowds of white people roamed the streets, aimlessly throwing rocks and bottles at homes in the colored neighborhoods. Most of the houses there had their curtains drawn. Gary led Sylvia carefully around the crowds and headed to the home of Daisy Bates. She gave Sylvia a big hug and did not seem surprised to see her. The nine students were sitting in two cars in front of her house. They did not wave.
“I'm getting ready to drive them to the school. There's a carload of Negro reporters with us. You two want to come?”
Sylvia nodded enthusiastically.
“You can ride with the reporters.” Miss Daisy hurried down her steps.
As they got close to Central High School, Sylvia saw what seemed to be thousands of angry white people in front of the school, getting more riled up by the minute. Even the air, Sylvia sensed, seemed dry like timber—ready to burst into flame from any spark. Terrified, heart trembling, Sylvia pressed her forehead against the coolness of the car window, watching the hysteria build.
The driver parked and the reporters, cameras and note-pads in hand, hopped out. Sylvia and Gary stayed in the car. In front of the school this time, instead of National Guardsmen, were local Little Rock police.
“Those cops look really scared,” Sylvia whispered, her voice echoing the looks on their faces.
“They've got reason to be. That crowd could stomp them if they wanted to.”
“Look!” Sylvia exclaimed. “They're getting in the side door! Finally!” She watched as the nine students, Elizabeth not by herself this time, scurried through the side door, police officers flanking them.
But someone in the crowd spotted them as they entered, and yelled, “They're in! The niggers are in!”
“Gary! They're going to mob the door!” Sylvia cringed.
Then the crowd moved as one being in the direction of that door. Sylvia could hear white mothers yelling to their children, “Come out! Don't stay in there with those niggers! Come out of there rather than breathe their air!”
“Are any kids coming out?” Sylvia asked. She had huddled down.
“Only a few. Looks like they're just looking for a new way to skip class.” Then Gary cried out, “Sylvia! They're attacking the colored reporters with rocks and bricks! Open the door! Here they come!”
This car is no protection against a mob. Suppose they attack us?
Sylvia envisioned herself being bandaged on her mother's sofa this time.
Heads bloodied and cameras broken, two of the reporters ran back to the safety of the car, where Gary and Sylvia crouched low in the backseat. “Are you okay?” Sylvia asked quietly. Blood trickled onto the car seat.
“We're fine,” one of the reporters said breathlessly, “but we don't know about the Nine.” Sylvia wasn't sure when everybody started referring to them as “the Nine” but the name seemed to have stuck.
“The mob is rushing the police barricades!” Gary said.
Sylvia could hear the people screaming, “Get the niggers out of there! Let's go get our shotguns!” She gasped.
“Are they going to be okay, Gary?”
“I see Miss Daisy's car moving around back. They're bringing the Nine out the back door. I guess we'll try again tomorrow.”
“What happens now?” Sylvia asked as a car roared down the street, horn blaring.
“Two, Four, Six, Eight ... We ain't gonna integrate!” The chant could be heard clearly, even though the car was far down the street. Another car roared by, full of teenagers, shouting loudly and forcefully, over and over until their voices faded. “Two, Four, Six, Eight ... We ain't gonna integrate!”
As they drove away, Sylvia shuddered, gulping away tears.
Tuesday, September 24, 1957
Mama had a full-grown purple cow
when she found out what me and Gary had done, but it was more because she was scared for our safety, instead of the fact we had skipped school. DJ looked up at me like I was a warrior queen or something—to buck Mama's rules and live is a pretty big deal. I didn't tell her I was so scared I almost wet my pants. Warrior queens don't do that.
Nobody went to school today. Not even those of us who go to the Negro schools. Parents are afraid to let their children out of their sight. The mayor of Little Rock doesn't know what to do. I heard on the news this morning that he's asked President Eisenhower to send troops. Real soldiers, the kind that fight wars in foreign countries. The president called the rioting “disgraceful” and has ordered the army into Little Rock. They're supposed to be here by tonight. How did this happen to us?
The editor of the
Arkansas Gazette
stared bluntly at the TV camera last night and stated, “I'll give it to you in one sentence. The police have been routed, the mob is in the streets, and we're close to a reign of terror.”
Around six this evening, I heard the roaring drone of airplanes in the distance. I peeked outside, and the sky was dotted with huge, dull green helicopters, throbbing against the shadows which had been clouds, and above them, dark green airplanes. I could hear sirens in the distance. It was like we were being invaded.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1957—MORNING
Well, they're here, Mama. The soldiers are here,” Sylvia said. Pictures of soldiers and tanks dominated the front page of the newspaper.
Mr. Patterson read out loud, “Twelve hundred members of the 1st Airborne Battle Group, 327th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division—paper says they're called the Screaming Eagles—are in our city and surrounding Central High School.”
“Wow,” Gary said.
“Are those soldiers good guys or bad guys?” DJ asked.
“They're from the President of the United States,” Mrs. Patterson explained. “They are here to make sure the law is enforced.”
“And the law says the Nine can go to Central High?” DJ continued.
“Yep. That's been the problem from the beginning. Now they can,” Sylvia explained.
No one had gone to school. The family huddled around the television set.
At 9:22 A.M. Sylvia watched proudly, with tears in her eyes, as the nine students entered the front door of Central High School. Not the back door. Not the side door. The front door like everybody else. Well, not exactly like everybody else. Twenty-two soldiers surrounded them. Helicopters circled above the school. Paratroopers stood on guard. The crowd had melted to just a few angry hotheads. The Nine were in.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1957
Sylvia went to the phone, picked up the receiver, and started to dial. As she put her fingertips into the little white circles, she could hear the distinctive
zip, zip, zip
of the telephone dial as it spun around.
“Hi, Rachel. It seems like forever since I've talked to you. How's your mom and dad?” Sylvia twirled the phone cord in her fingers.
“So much better now that the rebuilding has started. Papa wakes up early every morning—making plans for the day instead of sleeping all day and refusing to get out of the bed in Uncle Ruben's guest room. Uncle Ruben was about to kick him to the side of the road! And Mother is cooking again, so that's a good sign.”
“What about you?” Sylvia asked. “It must be rough living with relatives.”
“Tell me about it. Instead of a pretty new dress for the first day of school, I had to wear one of my cousin Hilda's old outfits. She's taller and skinnier than me, so I looked like the Wicked Witch of the West!” She giggled.
“I thought you looked pretty good,” Sylvia said. “I saw you on TV.”
“You saw that? Hmmph! Stupid reporters and their dumb questions!”
“I think you said just the right thing, Rachel, something the world needed to hear,” Sylvia said honestly.
Ignoring the compliment, Rachel replied, “Did you see that cute boy who talked to me right after that?”
“No, they switched the camera to somebody who would say something mean.”
“Well, there are plenty of those, and not as many cute boys as I thought there would be, so I still don't have a boyfriend yet.” She paused. “School is crazy, Sylvia. Unbelievable.”
“It's gotta be. So, tell me how it is—really. It must be really something behind those big old doors when the TV cameras aren't lurking.”
“You want to know the truth? It's awful, Sylvia. Bomb threats are called into the school every day. We have to leave the building while they search for nothing.”
“The protesters are just trying to disrupt the normal flow of things.”
“Well, they're doing a pretty good job! You know, I think if they just left us alone, the kids would be fine. It's the grown-ups who are protesting and acting like idiots. They're the ones who are making it impossible for anybody to have a normal school day.”
“Yeah, there's not a whole lot of normal going on in Little Rock these days,” Sylvia said in agreement. “Crosses have been burned in front of some of the homes of the Nine.”
“I heard. How horrible to wake up in the middle of the night with a Klan cross in your yard.”
“About like waking up to find a swastika on your door. You've been there. Pretty awful.”
“I think the only reason we haven't had another Nazi sign painted on our door is that we have no door!” Rachel said with a rueful laugh. “Papa's been pretty outspoken about how stupid the segregationists are—lots of people don't like that.”
“Yeah, but isn't it cool the way folks are coming together to help your family and Miss Lillie to rebuild?”
“You're right. It makes it easier to deal with the rest of the craziness. Colored men are hammering in our building and white men are nailing stuff on Miss Lillie's side. Women of all colors making food for everybody. It's like a place where you can find water in the middle of a desert.”
“I think my mother is sending over red beans and rice this week. She's sending better food over there than we're getting at home!”
“Tell DJ I have the latest Archie comic book. I've been saving them for her.”
“Thanks.” Sylvia paused. “Rachel, do you have any classes with any of the Nine?”
“A couple. I go out of my way to make sure nobody messes with them, but basically, I try to treat them like I'd treat anybody who needed to borrow a pencil or wanted to know what page the teacher was talking about. You know, like it's no big deal.”

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