After being a bit underwhelmed by the pop-history of many of the museums and sites we've seen this summer, Tyler and I are both impressed with the Central High museum and visitor's center. We're greeted by Brian and Fabian, who are earnest and eager to ensure we get the most of our visit. The visitor's center is filled with well-edited videos and audios that take you back to September 1957, and let you hear reflections of the Little Rock nine.
The gift shop is well-done and includes related books about forced desegregation around the south, including the story of Ruby Bridges. Aged 6 in 1960, she was the first black student to attend an all-white elementary school in St. Louis. It was easy to get choked up reading about her reflection on that first day: "Driving up, I could see the crowd. But living in New Orleans, I thought it was Mardi Gras."
One of my favorite stories in Warriors Don't Cry, an autobiography written by Melba Pattillo Beals (one of the Little Rock nine) describes sitting in the Governor's mansion that Faubus built, speaking with Governor Clinton thirty years after the forced desegregation. She writes: "He and his wife, Hillary, were the kind of host and hostess who could make me feel at home even in the place where Faubus had hatched his develish strategies to get the nine of us out of Central High School by any means possible... As Chelsea played the piano and Bill and Hillary talked to me as though we'd known each other always, I found myself thinking, 'Oh, Mr. Faubus, if only you and your friends could see us now."
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