This book touched me deeply, and at times I had to stop reading because of the tears in my eyes as I read this very personal tale of a black teen-ager integrating Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas in 1957. It was all the more poignant because I remember these events, and I also remember reading about the ordeal of one of the nine teen-agers, Minnijean, in a magazine picture story at the time. I remember reading that the white kids threw hot soup on Minnijean, and this was just one of many indignities that these young civil right pioneers had to endure. Minnijean was later expelled for fighting back against her harassers. These teen-agers had gone where they were not wanted, but where they had a right to be. The Supreme Court declared that "separate but equal" did not satisfy the law; separate was inherently unequal. All-white schools had to admit black students.
I am a white woman, a few years younger than the author, who grew up in Flint, Michigan. Flint was a segregated city and, in the early 1950s, my family moved from our home, along with all of our neighbors, because a black family had moved onto our block. This was mainly instigated by the real estate people who would move in a black family and then urge the white people to sell their homes (this was known as "block busting"). I never met any black people until high school, when I volunteered at a home for the aged, and worked beside the kitchen staff who were all black. In those days, there were black neighborhoods and white neighborhoods, and segregation in housing and schools was the norm. I wonder how many younger people really understand this?
What stood out for me in reading this book was the innocence of Carlotta as she quietly decided that she would take the opportunity offered by the Brown vs. Board of Eduction Supreme Court decision, and the emphasis on getting a good education imparted to her by her parents. She was not looking to be an example, a pioneer, or a symbol. She just wanted to go to the best school available, and that was Central. The fact that it was also close to home for her is a bit different from the situation we had in the North, where the black neighborhoods tended to be distant from where white people lived, and there was not much mingling of black and white.
In the North, school integration was accomplished mainly with busing - putting black kids on a bus each morning and taking them to the white school, and sending some of the white kids to the black school. I well remember the many signs in windows in suburban Detroit areas reading "This Family Will Not be Bused." The court had ordered cross-district busing because Detroit was a nearly all-black city; there were too few white kids in the city for Detroit-only busing to accomplish much. Cross-district busing never happened though and Detroit schools have been nearly all black ever since, although Detroit's suburbs have achieved substantial integration.
Sometimes the kids in the author's neighborhood, where black and white families lived in closer proximity, managed to ignore the norms of segregation. She describes white kids joining the black kids to make up enough players for baseball games. Her family members were big baseball fans and took great pride in Jackie Robinson, as he became the first black major league baseball player. The author had been active in sports too, but was not allowed to take part in any extracurricular activities at Central. She gave up a lot and suffered continual torment from many of the white students. Most of them simply ignored her, but a few did reach out in small ways to the black students.
Not all of the author's teachers thought going to Central was a good idea, when she first chose to do so. Her teachers at the all-black school were well-qualified and felt some disappointment in losing good students to the white school. They also understood far better than did their naive students, what they might be facing. The white community overwhelmingly opposed integration and the governor, the notorious Orval Faubus (yes, I remember him), refused to carry out the court's order. It finally took federal troops walking with each of the students up the school steps, and a soldier staying with each student throughout the day, to keep them safe enough to attend classes at Central. These students faced confrontations with angry mobs, but found the courage to continue. It would take many years and many changed hearts and minds -- coming "a mighty long way" -- to journey towards a society that is color-blind in education, housing, employment and our every-day lives.
The author ends the book with her observations about the election of Barack Obama, which she says she did not see coming. Neither did I. It didn't really hit me until the day after his election as President. I was standing in my kitchen thinking about all those civil rights rallies I had attended as a young college student at Wayne State University in Detroit, which always ended with all of us (black and white) holding hands and singing "We Shall Overcome." I suddenly realized that this election meant we had succeeded. We had overcome. I started to cry, and the tears kept coming the whole way to work. Later, an old friend from Wayne State told me she had the same reaction and had also cried the day after the election.
I highly recommend "A Mighty Long Way" to everyone who wants to know more about the the real history of America. The book is well-written, with a complete account of what happened at Central High School in the late 1950s, and a nice update on the students who made history, even though all they wanted was to get a good education.
