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Ernest Green Throughout the American South, of many Negro's childhood, the system of segregation determined the patterns of life. Blacks attended separate schools from whites, were barred from pools and parks where whites swam and played, from cafes and hotels where whites ate and slept. On sidewalks, they were expected to step aside for whites. It took a brave person to challenge this system, when those that did suffered a white storm of rancor. Affronting this hatred, with assistance from the Federal Government, were nine courageous school children, permitted into the 1957 / 8 school year at Little Rock Central High. The unofficial leader of this band of students was Ernest Green.
The children of Little Rock Arkansas never doubted that, like every other southern Negro, they lived in an unequal, segregated society. In the twentieth century, the black population of Arkansas still endured periodic beatings, arrests and daily racial taunts at the slightest provocation. However, the law was turning in the Negroes favour. Various organisations including the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and Negro produced newspapers fought for an end to racial discrimination and for the advancement of the black population. "They began to assert political and economic pressure" against citizens, organisations and governments violating human rights. The victory in the 1954 Brown Vs Board of Education case granted the Federal Government the ability to pass school integration laws permitting Negro children to attend white schools. This was "a great forward step in achieving true equality." Virgil Blossom, of the Little Rock school board, consented to nine black children integrating into Central High on September 4 th 1957, 3 years after the United States Supreme Court decision.
Testament to his resilience and determination in the face of angry segregationists, Ernest assumed the role of head of his family at the age of sixteen, after his father's death in 1953. Ernest's mother, an elementary school teacher, and his younger brother Scott both respected this new allotment Ernest assumed at such a young age. His mother knew it was useless attempting to persuade the headstrong Ernest to reconsider attendance at Little Rock Central High School after he had been selected as one of the nine Negro children to attend. Students were selected based on adaptability, intelligence and health.
The school board requested only intelligent students so that there was no backlash against integration. If one of the chosen students failed in their exams, the segregationists would declare integration a failure. Of all the children from the Horace Mann High School and Dunbar Junior High School, eighty signed up to attend Central High. After numerous interviews and exams, thirty-two children were considered eligible. This number was reduced to nine after the ramifications of black students entering an all white high school prompted many of them to decline the transition into an arena where mental and physical violence would be forced upon them daily. Understanding this it is clear that Ernest Green is an extraordinary young man from the outset.
He obviously possessed remarkable intelligence and defended a strong belief in his intentions for relocating in his pivotal senior year. All of the children that had reached this far into the selection would have sensed that they were a part of an uncertain, yet historic situation, that would further Negro rights. Ernest Green was well aware of the discrimination present amongst segregationists in Little Rock. Since the age of eleven he had worked during his holidays and adapted well with his fellow white workers. Working as a stockton, cleaner and part-time salesperson, Ernest was proficient in his duties, until he tasted the sting of prejudice when customers complained about his position in the store. Segregationists may not have accepted such a confident youth, but his mother considered Ernest to be the one of the most popular and self-reliant students at Horace Mann.
At his locker room job, at Westridge Country club, Ernest made friends with two of his fellow white workers who attended Central High. Owing to his adaptability, Ernest was the only integrated student to have "several acquaintances" in such a hazardous situation. Many blacks did not believe that the school board were intent on integrating their children into the white schools, as the inclination of the southern whites to hold their word was not evident in the past. In the spring of 1957, the governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, was unmistakable in his association with segregationists by countering the Supreme Court integration laws with four pro-segregation bills. The first bill created the Arkansas Sovereignty Commission, which dealt with, and declared unjust, any laws developed by the Federal Government that, "encroached on Arkansas sovereignty." Specifically designed to deal with the current crisis, the new bills enabled Governor Faubus to oppose the integration laws. The bills also allowed greater vigilance towards the NAACP and authorised schools to appropriate their funds to hire lawyers and fight integration suits.
Governor Faubus did not want Ernest Green or any other black children in his white high schools. Daisy Bates, President of the NAACP prepared the selected children for the transition from the all black Horace Mann and Dunbar to Central High School. Visiting devotees of satyagraha, the Ghandi inspired strategy of nonviolence, suggested the children adopted it. Through the crisis, no matter how badly provoked, no matter how brutal their foes, Ernest never turned to violence. Martin Luther King's philosophy was similar in that that Ernest should (and did) view "nonviolence as the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time - the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. " Despite being oppressed his entire life by the discriminatory laws and actions of his government, Ernest denied his emotions an outlet through vengeance and channeled them through music instead.
The black children, however, were not permitted to attend music classes at Central High. One of Ernest's principal loves was music, specifically jazz and playing his tenor saxophone. The deprivation of the only way to vent his frustrations at a system that denies black equality, despite government legislation contravening it, surely must have undermined his will to continue. The denial to play his music would have extinguished his desire to show strength in front of the others. "Many times I saw him hide his own anger and fear so as to encourage the others." Although considered highly self-confident and often quoted by reporters as "enjoying every moment of his tension packed attendance at Central High", Ernest would have felt alone if it were not for the others when the National Guard surrounded Central High to prevent him entering. Army trucks and personnel were lined up outside the school.
Faubus declared that they were needed to protect the integrating black children from "caravans filled with white supremacists." According to Daisy Bates this reason to forbid the black children attending Central was untrue. Faubus' televised report on the situation only succeeded in inflaming the racists' anger and declaring his position on black children entering white schools. His statement that "blood will run in the streets" was solely a self fulfilling prophesy that...
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Research essay sample on Central High School Horace Mann
