This document contains poems and reflections from a course on the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School in 1957. It discusses the brave students who integrated the school facing hostility, the ongoing impact of segregation, and calls for confronting racism and injustice in education today. Reflections consider how far we have come, but also how much further we still need to go to achieve truly equal opportunities and integrated schools.

1. Facing History and Ourselves:
Choices in Little Rock Online Course
Found Poems: Fall 2014 Course

2. S- Sinister plans working against integration throughout the
south, but particularly in Little Rock, Ar.
U- Unselfish trailblazers working to end segregation and
create new opportunities for others
C- Clinton presidency served by some
C- Carter presidency served by others
E- Education is POWER, as these people have proven over
and over again in their lives since they left Little Rock.
S- Self-perception of black children is impacted so
shockingly by segregation. I was shocked by the baby-doll
test.
S- Segregation's impact on American history is profound
and is still an issue being combated today, but the
problem today is more about de facto segregation than
de jure

3. Shunned, that was the beginning.
Never invisible. Not welcomed.
Ignored.
"Purge" of 44 teachers.
A refuge for white kids who were escaping racism.
What a city of Jim Crow, apartheid, injustice it was.
Rehashing of memories like to see buried.
The dead can be buried, but not the past.
Never let your enemy know what you are feeling.
Same front door, different corridors, separate classrooms.
People close their eyes.
Racial makeup of classrooms reinforces self-segregation.
Internalized systemic racism.
Ignorance and anger.
For a black girl in general, you're missing a piece of you.
Any actual heritage, culture.
Understand and appreciate diversity.
Develop your sense of difference in your sense of identity.
Be change agents in the world for justice.
Why aren't we all sitting together?

4. If I teach the kids as it should be and their parents don’t
agree,
confront injustice, confront injustice
These kids would have to go against their parents who
they loved
confront Injustice, confront injustice
They’d have to go against their religion or their church
What would they have us do, deny that it happened?

5. Maintaining ideology, process, and practice that started with the inception of our country
It's just the way that it is
In 1957, you got in the way
We must claim our own civil rights
The Little Rock Nine Transformed the world
We were children
We didn't do it for ourselves, we did it for generations to come
I had to dare to do what I truly thought was right
I was the only one like me
Lost childhood
Shocking, terrifying event
Traumatic
Transformative
Rejected
A thin veneer of civility
Years to heal
Doing well is the best revenge
Gratitude
All things are connected
Are we willing to confront our racist past?
Reality is still separate and unequal
Light skin is beautiful
Missing heritage
Are we content to allow things to drift on as they are?
Sacrifice squandered
Set a new playing field
We have to go forward there is no going back
You too are capable of changing the world
It is possible
A Perfect
Democracy

6. Promises of Democracy
But only silence
Any child can be left behind
A long jeering whistle
What they have been taught to hate and fear
The people who have inherited the South
Teachers have a dilemma
Doing well is the best revenge
Taught
Know
Inherit
Promise
Blame
Attack
Impose
Teach
Hate
Love

7. Much depends upon one’s definition of “normal,” or who is doing the
defining.
The kind of victory I felt, there wasn’t anything to yell about.
Courage and perseverance and as an inspiration for me to never
remain silent again.
Doing well is the best revenge
What were the mothers doing? The daddies? Where were the
churches? Where were the synagogues? Which rabbis spoke up?
Who was an upstander? Who wasn’t?
One never knows when he/she will become the hated “other.”
Our brother’s and sister’s keeper
Schools within schools
Institutional

8. You’re not wanted.
never take being shunned, spat upon, or kicked personally.
You are a symbol.
“The dead can be buried, but not the past.”
Change takes place.
There is more to be done
confronting injustice,
foot soldiers of freedom.
There are mountains beyond mountains
My heroes and heroines started to be different.
She saw potential in me.
I did not.
We had shared something.
The room was silent.
Prepare yourselves to lead.
Dream big dreams of
courage and perseverance.
Finish the things you begin.
Find the grit to endure.
Never remain silent again.
I finished the journey.
Things could have made me angry or depressed or give up,
but peace and prosperity depend on people
who differ in millions of ways.

9. self-segregated class
disturbing
feel comfortable
sorry for us
soldiers their to keep us out
in shock
the woman I thought was kind spat on me
child ceased to exist
rejected
daily struggle
hope to come out alive
Bayonets bar our entrance
thin veneer of civility
two steps forward, three steps back
moving forward… sometimes slowly and sometimes with speed
we made the right decision
how do you twist your face in such a fashion to give that message of
hate?
all things are connected
transformed me
we were children
much the same

10. Facing History Today
So much has changed.
Unless we understand what has happened, we have no clue what is happening now.
At suburban schools across the country, children of every age and ethnicity walk through the
same front door. But, too often, they walk down different corridors and sit in separate
classrooms. Too often, minority children find themselves in special education and non-college-
bound classes...
For many children, the reality is still separate and unequal.
The Little Rock Nine transformed the world.
Even though segregation in our schools is dead, the reality is that millions of African
American, Hispanic, and other minority children still go to segregated schools and receive an
education inferior to that received by most white children.
Are we willing to confront our racist past in an effort to redeem the present and make plans
for the future? Are we willing to confront self about what we are doing to support this status
quo? Are we willing to really involve ourselves in meaningful change or are we going to be
content to allow things to drift on as they are?
The question is: how will we choose to move forward?
There is more to be done, for certain.