Little Rock Nine Member Recalls Ugliness During Desegregation

One of the key figures during the end of racial segregation in schools in the 1950s shared his experience at the Allendale Branch Library on Saturday, talking about how much prejudice he faced after finally being admitted to an all-white school.

Dr. Terrence Roberts was part of the Little Rock Nine, the name given to a small group of African American students who were the first to be enrolled at the Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957.

Even after the Brown v. Ruling by the US Supreme Court, then Arkansas governor Orval Faubus blocked Robert’s and his classmates’ entry into the school until President Dwight Eisenhower sent troops to enforce integration.

But even after that, Roberts said he had a new set of challenges to deal with, including some teachers who were vehemently against having black students in their classrooms.

“[An English teacher] front me one day and said ‘why do you want to come our school?’ Why don’t you go back to your own school?’” Roberts told an audience of about 50 people.

Even as a teenager, he said he knew to refrain from retaliating.

“I wondered about her sanity and as a consequence of not knowing what to say, I just smiled and walked off, that has become my signature response,” Roberts said. “Why would you waste time attempting to have a conversation with someone who was unable to hold up their own end?”

Then there were his new white classmates. One person in the audience asked if Roberts or any others from the Little Rock Nine had any white friends.

Roberts said there were those who sympathized, but it was always a tricky scenario.

“Actually, based on who I am, all the white kids were my friends going into this, they just didn’t know it,” he said. “But there was a social injunction was there if you befriend the black kids, we’ll kill you, too. That made it virtually impossible for the white kids.”

But as Roberts mentioned earlier, he learned at a young age from his parents never to lash out with violence. He then shared what he told his white classmates in the aftermath of desegregation when some asked if they were forgiven.

“Fighting back is easy, holding back is a more difficult thing,” he said, adding: “It makes no sense to hang onto to all those negative feelings, that rubs against the grain for most people that want an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth. All of you are going to lose your body parts at some point, it becomes increasingly important to understand how to remain whole and intact and when you do that best, you learn to love and respect each other.”

During Robert’s senior of high school, Faubus forcefully closed all public school in Arkansas. He packed up and moved to Los Angeles where he earned his diploma, then later on went to college to earn a PhD in psychology.

Roberts currently resides in Pasadena.

Another audience member asked abouter Elizabeth Eckford, a member of the Little Rock Nine made famous in a picture where she’s walking to school with a white student, Hazel Bryan Massery shouting at her from behind.

Roberts was asked if he knew about the encounters that Eckford and Massery had after that photo was taken.

“Hazel had lunch in Little Rock once and apologized and in a very genuine way,” he said. “I’ve gotten apologies that were less than genuine.”

He recalled an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1994 alongside white classmates from Central High School who made an on-air apology.

But Roberts said he never heard sorry from them up until that taping or after.

“In this country, some people will do whatever is necessary to be on Oprah,” he said jokingly.