I Will Not Fear Read online

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And there will be no birth certificate saying that baby was born here. I don’t want a parade of Negras marching here stinking up the place.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Backing out of the office, curtseying with her hands in a praying position, Grandmother was very grateful.

  On Saturday afternoon, December 6, Mother Lois began harsh, prolonged contractions and spurts of pain that overcame her. Papa dropped her and Grandma off just outside the hospital back door. Mother was in a small, windowless but clean room. She began what would become a long night and next day filled with drama and pain with Grandmother at her side. The room Mother occupied was down an isolated hallway. When Grandmother asked for pain medication, the nurse said, “Give you niggers an inch and you take a mile.”

  Early the next morning, Mother was wrenched with pain and covered with perspiration. Grandmother feared that nurses and doctors would ignore her. She telephoned Dr. Routen, a white doctor who had been our family doctor for several years. He came to the hospital and summoned another physician to give Mother medicine and take her to the delivery room.

  Meanwhile, Dad discovered a radio down the hall and was busy going back and forth between the two rooms as he announced, “Pearl Harbor has been attacked.”

  December 7, 1941, was a traumatic day that looms in this country’s history! Bombs were bursting in air as Pearl Harbor was shattered. Hearing announcements of this tragic event was secondary in Mother’s life as she prepared to give birth to her first child.

  Grandmother prayed and read Bible verses as Father meandered back and forth with news of Pearl Harbor. They anticipated a difficult birth. It lasted thirty hours. Mother Lois was petite—while Father was six feet four and two hundred pounds. As time grew near, Grandmother reported that there were signs of trouble. Dad was not called, as men were not allowed in the delivery room.

  When the birth process grew ever more difficult, the doctor decided to use forceps, though admitting this practice could lead to infection. I weighed nine pounds, eight ounces.

  After the birth was complete, Mom and I were taken to the storage room. On the way out, Grandma remembered seeing Mr. Jeffers cleaning the birth room.

  By my first evening on earth, December 7, it was evident that my head was swelling, and I could not keep my tiny hands from scratching. Grandma said I cried all night long, but even though she pled with the nurse, no one would come to address my problem. By Monday, my temperature had soared to 103 degrees. My hot, swollen head was an open, bleeding wound, which alarmed Mother, Grandmother, and Father.

  By Tuesday, December 9, my temperature was 105. The doctor announced that the infection was spreading, and I probably would not make it. He operated on my head and inserted irrigating tubes.

  The next day, just outside Mother’s door, Mr. Jeffers was sweeping the floor. When he heard Grandmother praying aloud as Mother cried softly, he stepped inside the door and expressed his concern. “I guess washing her head with that there Epsom salts did not work,” he lamented.

  “What Epsom salts?” Grandmother asked.

  “The doctor told the nurse the baby’s head needs rinsing every two hours or so with Epsom salts.”

  “No,” Grandmother said, “the baby’s been here with us, and the nurse has not come to rinse her head.”

  Racing down the hallway, Grandma got ahold of the nurse. “We do not coddle niggers here,” the red-haired nurse shouted. “Understand I don’t have time for you or your baby. You don’t belong here!”

  Grandmother grabbed her purse and left for the store to purchase Epsom salts. Only by the grace of God and an angel carrying a broom did I live. Three days later, we left the hospital.

  As a child growing up, I always fretted about the bald strip that ran from the top of my misshapen head down to the right ear. I was so afraid that one of my friends would say something. Grandmother always quieted my fretting—explaining that it was proof of how special I was in God’s eyes because He had saved my life against all odds. “God has been kind to give you beautiful hair like shiny black satin to cover your scar. No one will know,” she said. “God has rescued you from death because He has special assignments for you. You will get word of the tasks you are to perform when He deems you ready for His work.”

  That special assignment came fifteen years later in September of 1957, when I was chosen as one of the Little Rock Nine—nine African American children selected by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, amid a firestorm of angry mobs determined to keep us out.

  It was not until fifty years later that I learned the enormity of the blessing I was granted. A cranial specialist was to examine my head because I had felt some discomfort after I accidently caught my head when closing the car trunk. As the nurse entered the room to gather preliminary information, I greeted her. She examined my head and began talking loudly and slowly to me as though I was hard of hearing and mentally disabled.

  “What day is it?” she shouted, leaning in close, staring at me.

  “Tuesday,” I said, curious about her behavior.

  “Who is president?” she screeched.

  “President Clinton, William Jefferson Clinton,” I repeated.

  At first, I cooperated with her line of questions, but then I screamed, “Lady, I am a professor with a doctoral degree. How can I help you?”

  That is when, with an astonished expression, she explained to me that with my misshapen head and the nature of the injury, I could have suffered cerebral palsy or another severe brain injury. The doctor said I was a walking miracle. I whispered, “Thank You, God,” all the way back to the car.

  What I know for sure is that we have a God who guides and protects us. God is always available when we call for help and even when we are unable or unwilling to call. He intervenes to rescue us, even when we don’t know we need help.

  Two

  Walking through the Valley

  Growing up in segregated Little Rock, Arkansas, in the 1950s was a deep life and faith struggle for a person of color. The first emotion I was aware of was fear. Fear of what would happen if we disobeyed the rules connected to large signs placed everywhere that read Whites Only, Black Folks Not Welcome. By the age of three, I noticed that white people were in charge, because they were the ones who kept telling the grown-ups in my family what to do. Every time we encountered them, my mom, dad, and grandma behaved as though they were really nervous and frightened they might do something wrong. Their fears were contagious because I mimicked that fear as well. Whenever we were near white people or even any of our relatives who were white-skinned and blue-eyed, I was terrified. So much so that when my blue-eyed cousins came to babysit us, I hid in the closet or under the bed.

  At age five, I joined in with the adults and complained about white folks being in charge because I resented not being able to ride the merry-go-round, sit in movies, or swim in the city pools. “Why can’t God make them share?” I asked over and over again. “We could each be in charge half a year. Put them in charge from January to June and give my folks charge from July to December.”

  “In God’s time,” Grandma replied. “Be patient. God loves you. Trust and He will provide.”

  Following the 1954 decision by the US Supreme Court that separate is not equal and that all public schools must be open to all children, the NAACP demanded that Arkansas’s formerly all-white schools comply. Little Rock school officials announced that they would comply with the court order by choosing African American children to enter the all-white Central High. I was selected as one of the first nine teenagers to enter that prestigious white school, which had a student body of more than nineteen hundred.

  Suddenly, in early September 1957, the city that had been my home for most of my life turned into an armed camp with hundreds of folks gathering in front of Central High each morning with the intent of keeping the nine of us out. After a few days
, the press was describing this gathering as a mob—a rampaging, out-of-control mob. News reporters from around the world were arriving in my hometown, focusing on what was becoming a volatile battle between our US government and the state of Arkansas, and I was in the middle of it.

  At the tender age of fifteen, my struggles to share equal opportunities would become a primer for my understanding of faith. Being able to sustain myself through a school year fraught with drama, violence, and fear was a critical tool in faith building. Integrating Central High School would become the foundation for a lifetime of sustaining faith and trust. That experience enabled me to embark upon a journey of life’s challenges with the confidence that Jesus would always be at my side.

  A shouting, angry, rock-throwing mob continued to block the entryway to Central High School during early September and the beginning of classes. As always, the Ku Klux Klan rode at night, only now more frequently in our neighborhood, violently threatening random people from our community because we wanted to attend their school. Unfortunately, news reports listed our addresses and phone numbers. I began receiving threatening and vulgar phone calls day and night. Shots rang out, and bullets pierced our window, shattering Grandmother’s antique flower vase, which stood on top of our television.

  Due to the escalating violence, I was no longer a cheerful teenager enjoying the Saturday night Hit Parade of music on television or waiting to hear Johnny Mathis sing on the radio or gathering at our community center to chat, play games, or take dance lessons. Instead, I was forbidden to leave the house without appropriate adult escorts. The only time I saw other teenagers was at church. My social life was crammed with press conferences and official meetings with the eight others who shared my predicament. These integration strategy meetings and lectures from Arkansas school officials were to tell us what we could and could not do—for example, “Don’t antagonize white students by drinking from Central High water fountains; bring a canteen of water in your lunch bucket. Never hit back!”

  As grateful as I was for the kind, respectful, and considerate Quakers who traveled from far away to help us, I became frightened of their nonviolent lectures and demonstrations of how to turn the other cheek or stop, drop, and roll. It would be much later that gratitude to them would overwhelm me because there was no doubt that their teaching helped to save our lives. Added to the changes usurping my social schedule were the parental meetings instructing us on how to duck, hide, or escape should the Klan choose to visit our home unannounced, brandishing their rifles and burning crosses.

  Amid a growing whirlwind of unfamiliar activities, places, people, and instructions, I felt distressed. I could clearly hear Grandma’s advice round the clock as though filed on cards in my head: “If you are going to have genuine faith, you must be certain of the purpose for your work and what you want to accomplish—what is your goal? Intent and purpose dictate your warrior action. Is your activity the same as God’s wishes? You must know the answer to that question without any doubt.”

  Hour after hour, I sat pondering those questions as my life began to have little resemblance to that which I was accustomed. Even when my younger brother, Conrad, begged me to play a game with him or Mother Lois admonished me for not reading enough literature, I couldn’t refocus.

  Following the Supreme Court ruling in 1954, and in the ninth grade at the time, I had raised my hand to volunteer to go to Central High because it was in my neighborhood. I was curious as to why I was never allowed to go there before. I attended a moderate, one-story high school, at which white students dumped their used books and broken-key typewriters at the end of the school semester.

  Each Sunday after church, Mother took us on a ride past the magnificent Central High with its seven stories, manicured lawns, distinct topiary, and granite water fountains. I had always been told that this giant, eight-square-block institution was filled with opportunities for a better education. The Little Rock School District automatically reserved for them fancier supplies, such as new equipment, advanced typewriters, an enormous band pit, and real apartments for practicing home economics. Our school received what they discarded—broken junk.

  The African American folk who cooked in Central High talked about the miracles offered in that gigantic compound with all its vast space, modern equipment, outdoor sports fields, and giant auditorium. I thought going there would bring blessings because it would provide me with an opportunity to get a scholarship to one of the top universities in the country. Attending Central High would be my ticket to escape from Little Rock forever.

  Questions hung in the air for us. When should we nine enter Central, how should we go, and with whom? All schools were about to be officially in session. Meetings revolved around the school board coordinating plans with the NAACP, which had to coordinate plans with our parents. With rising tensions fed by segregationists who opposed integration, it was clear we would need some kind of protection to get past the mob. All the threats from segregationists across the South and the confusion festering in my own community mixed into a keg of dynamite waiting to be ignited by fear and anger. I began asking myself if I had enough faith in my God to keep me safe from the bullies who seemed so powerful and determined to keep us out. My time alone in my room was spent being afraid and praying for relief.

  Although we had spent the latter part of August 1957 meeting and planning, the ultimate phone call came from the national NAACP representative late on September 1. She instructed Mother and me to meet the others the next day on the corner of 14th Street and Park and to walk toward the center of the school on 15th. The front of Central was two blocks long. I had no words to describe what I was feeling or thinking as I prepared for my first day of seeing what was inside this huge castle forbidden to me for so long and that I had daydreamed about.

  To add to the complexity of the drama, the night before we were to go to school, Governor Faubus suddenly posted Arkansas National Guard troops encircling the school. Newspapers, radio, and television were filled with talk of us and our going to Central High. No one seemed certain about what the soldiers were there to do—tame the mob, protect us and provide safe passage through the mob, or as one of the reporters predicted, merely provide pretty television pictures? Somehow the NAACP assumed the soldiers were there to keep peace. After all, Faubus bragged that he was the governor of all the people.

  It was a warm, muggy day as Mom and I headed for the school expecting some news reporters and confusion. Instead, we wandered, unaware, into a hornet’s nest. We noted the huge crowd gathered on the street directly across from Central High School, their attention focused on the front of the school. We had asked ourselves why at 7:30 in the morning the streets that led us there were so clogged with traffic and throngs of people—walking and driving. We were panicked because there was no place for us to park. We were late to meet the others, and once on foot, we did not see anyone we knew. We had thought there would be NAACP officials and school board members there as guides, but instead there was a sea of white faces—red, angry white faces. It was like attending a parade or a huge football game uninvited.

  In hindsight, had we been more conscious of the situation, we would have known for certain we were in grave danger. Not realizing our predicament, however, we struggled to make our way into the center of the crowd, preoccupied with finding a familiar face. We attempted to follow the instructions about entering Central High, which we now realized were vague.

  Making our way through a sardine-like packed crowd, we found ourselves deep in the middle of a multilayer of humanity, all white, focused on whatever was across the street. As we drew near, I cupped my hands around my eyes to see what they were focused on. Amid loud calls for “hang that nigger” was Elizabeth Eckford, one of us. The huge crowd was directing their hostility toward her as she stood alone. She was across the street from us directly in front of Central High, facing the long line of soldiers and surrounded by a barking cluster of white people who were screeching at her back.

  Barely fiv
e feet tall, my friend Elizabeth cradled her books in her arms as she desperately searched for the right place to enter. Uniformed soldiers towered over her and closed ranks each time she tried to enter the concrete walkway to the front door. Walking first to one and then another soldier, she seemed determined to walk between them, but they were just as determined to keep her away from the front door. She stood erect and proud as she turned away, concluding that she would not get through.

  Elizabeth walked along the line of soldiers. They did nothing to protect her from the shouting people on her heels who were spitting on her, yelling in her ear, calling her names. As a crowd of hecklers attempted to close in, the soldiers stared straight ahead. The human vultures around her seemed unwilling to give up. At that instant when the soldiers closed rank, she stood still, not knowing what to do. The people near us stomped and shouted louder as though gratified by her predicament. “Get her, get the nigger and hang her black behind.” Others applauded and goaded those who were preparing to go after Elizabeth.

  Fear swallowed me within a weird cloud because I needed to go to where she stood. But where should we go? Elizabeth slowly wedged her way past those surrounding her and headed for the corner where there was a bus stop. She did not react to what was happening around her but instead appeared to be staring straight ahead as she walked rather than ran at a confident pace. She reached the bus bench at the corner and sat down. Thank God, a white female, Mrs. Grace Lorch, and Benjamin Fine from the New York Times sat on either side of her, protecting her from would-be attackers.

  Is that what I would have to do? What would happen to us? Mother and I wanted to cross the street and help her, but the shock of what we were seeing momentarily froze us in our tracks. Suddenly, the men around us shouted, “We got us a nigger right here.” That’s when Mother and I realized we were in great danger as well. We began to edge our way backward.

  All at once, a white man glowered at me and grabbed my sleeve. I snatched my arm away and lunged toward the rear of the crowd. The men gathering around us carried ropes and weapons. The man who had grabbed at me began telling those around him that Mom and I were nearby. Mother and I tugged at each other and sped up our pace. We bumped into people and pushed through harder. “We got us a nigger right here,” someone shouted again.