Brown v. Board of Education

Today I listened to Melba Pattillo Beals speak at Foothill. Ms. Beals was one of the nine black students who integrated Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. She has since become a Congressional Medal Winner and an accomplished author and journalist.

Her story is amazingly vivid and it rolls across the audience like a wave. She speaks as if it had happened yesterday.

The first attempt to integrate school ended with a 15 year old Melba and her mother escaping a lynch mob by car. The second day ended with a police escort as opposed to sacrificing one of the nine to the mob in order to extricate the remaining eight. Finally, with the help of the Screaming Eagles, Melba got through her first year of high school.

It is utterly frightening to realize that we still live within one generation of such a painful turning point in American history.