Little Rock Nine

Photo of 101st U.S. Airborne Division courtesy http://upload.wikimedia.org.

My son Thomas started high school today at Hamilton District Christian High.  He had the normal first day of school jitters.  He wondered if he would know anyone in his classes.  He wondered what his first bus ride would be like.  He complained about the acne on his face.  But the one thing he didn't need to worry about was the colour of his skin.  He entered the school of his own accord rather than with armed troops at his side.  He entered the school without an angry mob yelling epithets and threats against him.  He entered the school without his fellow students spitting on him.  He entered the school without a line of reporters snapping his photo and posting it on the front page of the Hamilton Spectator.

Such was not the case when the Little Rock Nine (Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest green, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Arlotta Walls LeNier, Minnijean Brown Gloria Ray Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed and Melba Patillo Beals) entered high school on this day in 1957.  Daisy Bates, the head of the local NAACP chapter, arranged to have nine Black students enroll at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas that year.  After the landmark case of Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, the court had ruled that segregation was unconstitutional and that all schools should be desegregated, but putting the theory into practice was a different story.  Governor Orval Faubus arranged to have the State National Guard meet the nine Black students with guns and gas masks ready to prevent their entry into the school.  White students called the Blacks "Communists" and other names; they spit in their faces; they threw bricks at them; and they blocked their entry into the school.  Reporters were beaten up by the angry mob. 

Little Rock soon became not only national but international news at a time when the Cold War was at its peak:  how could America justify treating its own citizens so poorly when it was supposed to be the land of democracy?  President Eisenhower realized something needed to be done so he pleaded with the Arkansas governor to call off the National Guard and allow the nine students to enter the school.  However, Mr. Faubus would not budge.  In the meantime, President Eisenhower sent federal troops to Arkansas to officially integrate the school. 

On September 25, the Little Rock Nine entered the school, each with a patroller by his or her side.  While the show of solidarity was impressive, White students continued to harass the Black students at any given opportunity.  Melba Patillo Beals was stabbed at one point and had acid thrown in her face; fortunately her patroller immediately threw water in her eyes to prevent her from being blinded.  Minnijean, taunted by Whites in the cafeteria, poured a bowl of chili on one of them only to be suspended for six days while no punishment was doled out to the instigators.  One of the students had his or her home bombed in the Fall of 1959.

In the meantime, Governor Faubus tried to stop integration by closing down all four Little Rock high schools.  The board even fired 44 high school teachers who were later re-instated.  But the damage was done:  all of the Little Rock high school students could not attend school during "The Lost Year".  Some of the Little Rock Nine transferred to other schools due to the harassment, but three remained to graduate.  Melba Patillo Beals ended up becoming a teacher at Central High which is 60% Black today. 

So as my son heads back to high school tomorrow, I can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that he can do so freely without harassment.  We take education for granted, but it came with a high price for the Little Rock Nine. 

Photo of one of the Little Rock Nine courtesy www.nps.gov.

*First published in 2012.

David Kamp's "American Communion"

"As Rubin progressed from his 30s to 40s, and Cash from his 60s to 70s, the two became confidants and sounding boards on matters spiritual as well as musical -- a sort of Tuesdays with Morrie scenario, without the slush and hokum, and with a more reciprocal exchange of wisdom between the dying man and the younger man."

In the early 1990's, Johnny Cash was washed up.  After decades of making country music, he had been dropped by his record label, Columbia, a company which he helped build.  His career needed a boost.  It came in the most unexpected form:  "a ZZ Top looking dude" who had founded the hip hop label Def Jams.  The Man in Black and his new producer, Rick Rubin, would made a "decade's worth of astonishing albums" and forge an enduring friendship in the process.  

Johnny Cash was a self made man.  His father was an Arkansas cotton picker during the Great Depression.  His brother died in a saw mill accident, one that Johnny blamed himself for as he had been fishing at the river rather than helping his brother on that fateful day.  His mother raised him with a strong faith in God.

The hardships that Johnny faced as a child and young adult are weaved into his songs.  One theme consistent to his early records was the train; his dad used to ride the rails when he couldn't get work picking cotton.  "Trains were in Cash's veins," says David Kamp, evident in the "boom chicka boom rhythm of his early records" like Ride this Train and All Aboard the Blue Train.  

Cash continued to write about his life in his songs, evident in "I Walk the Line", about being tempted by other women during his marriage, or "Folsom Prison Blues", although he never served more than one night in jail.  Johnny rocketed to fame, and with it, the temptations.  He battled an addiction to both amphetamines and barbituates.  His anger reared its ugly head when he kicked the stage lights out at the Grand Ole Opry one night.  

It was June Carter who led him to Christ, and helped him conquer his addictions.  Already making music together for years, they married in 1968 and had a son together.  The 1970's saw Cash produce album after album.  But by the mid 1980's, his creativity had dried up.  

Enter Rick Rubin and his unorthodox methods.  He suggested to Johnny that he branch out from his country roots:  Leonard Cohen's "Bird on a Wire", Danzig's "Thirteen", Soundgarden's "Rusty Cage" and Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" (Cash said that he wished he had written the latter song himself).  And it worked!  Johnny had the "gift of making any song his own".  The Rick Rubin albums became known as the "American Recordings".  Cash started touring again for the first time in ages.  "Out on the road it started feeling like 1955 again," he recalled.

But Rubin and Cash didn't just click musically.  They discovered that they were kindred spirits, holding long conversations about spirituality.  Rubin mentioned a sermon about communion delivered by Dr. Gene Scott that had inspired him.  Growing up in a Jewish household, Rubin had never taken communion.  One day, he asked Cash if he would act as the pastor, and the two of them could celebrate the Last Supper.  Cash found some crackers and grape juice, and performed the ceremony.  It became a daily ritual for the two friends.  When they were apart, they shared the ritual over the phone.

Cash struggled with his health in the later years, forcing him to give up touring.  But he continued to make music at his homes in Tennessee, Virginia and Jamaica.  In 1997, he was hospitalized for pneumonia; the doctors put him into an induced coma from which he would not come out.  After twelve agonizing days, June, a prayer warrior, appealed to his fans at johnnycash.com.  Within hours, Johnny was squeezing her hand.     

Their love affair ended in 2003 when June passed away.  Rubin said that Cash sounded worse than ever.  However, he stood firm:  "My faith is unshakeable!"  Four months later, he passed away.  John Carter Cash, his son, sent Rick Rubin a gift with a note.  It was a communion kit.

To read the full essay visit (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/02/johnny-cash-201002).