Justice, Courage and Community
Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Phoenix
September 14, 2008
51 years ago this month the Little Rock nine integrated Central High school in Little Rock, Arkansas.
One photograph from that day has become a iconic image from our history. It was taken by Will
Counts. It is a photograph of the young African American student, Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little
Rock nine, walking towards the doors of Central High. She is at the center of the picture, alone,
dressed in a starched white blouse and skirt, eyes covered by sunglasses. Behind her, almost half
encircling her are four white female students. One of those white students is yelling at Eckford, and
while photographs have no sound, it is clear she is yelling hateful, racial epithets. Another of the
female students is looking at Eckford with an angry, scornful glare, another has an almost mocking
smile on her face. Behind the girls is a mob of white adults from the community, men and women all
following Eckford as she does what most children take for granted, walking up to the doors of her
school. Then finally off to the side, on the outside edges of the crowd you see armed officers.
The day before school was to begin the governor of Arkansas ordered the Arkansas National Guard to
bar the African American students from entering Central High. A federal order overturned the
Governor's use of the Guard. Eventually, President Eisenhower took control of the guard, but on
September 25, 1957, when the Little Rock nine first came to school, the President had to order the
101st Airborne Division out of Tennessee to escort the students to the school. This was the day the
photograph was taken.
The picture is haunting. Looking closely you can feel the anger of the white community and the white
students, and you can see how the young Eckford steels herself against the angry mob--but you can
also see her fear. And the troops, or police officers look like bystanders, standing on the outskirts of
the crowd. They provide no protection for this young girl.
But remember there were nine students who integrated Central High that day. The night before, the
students got on the phone with each other and decided to meet early and then go to the school
together. Elizabeth Eckford and her parents did not have a phone, and she did not get the call. While
the other 8 students faced a similar crowd, they faced it together. Elizabeth Eckford arrived at the
school first and by herself. She had to walk through that angry mob by herself, and when she arrived
at the doors of the school, she was denied entrance by the Arkansas Guard Troops and forced back
into the angry crowd.
When asked later, whether they would do it again, the eight students that went as a group all said,
without a doubt, they would do it all over again. Elizabeth Eckford, however, said no. She said if she
knew it was going to be that bad, she never would have gone.
Our congregation is home to the statues "That Which Might Have Been, 1963", a memorial to the four
young girls killed in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing in Birmingham Alabama on
September 15, 1963, six years after the integration of Central High. The statues and the reflection
pool in which they stand where made by the artist John Henry Waddell, a member of our
congregation. Tomorrow will be the 45th anniversary of that hate crime. The bomb was set by 4
members of the Klu Klux Klan and was retaliation against the church for its successful efforts to
overturn segregation in the city of Birmingham. Yesterday, we held commemorative events marking
this tragedy. In the morning a small group of us gathered to view the film "The Children's March." It
told the story of the children who had led the civil rights marches that brought down segregation in
Birmingham.
Birmingham was one of the most segregated cities in the country. It was the city of Bull Conner, one
of our history's most viscous, elected, segregationists. Order, or submission rather, was imposed with
violence and strict punishment. African Americans called the city "Bombing-ham" because of the
number of bombings that occurred in retaliation for any outspokenness by African Americans. Dr. King
decided to bring the civil rights movement to Birmingham, and he and his top leaders strategized that
the way to bring down segregation in Birmingham would have to be by filling the jails. Police brutality,
as well as firing people, foreclosing on their homes, taking away their cars, were the way Bull Conner
and the Klan kept "order." At meetings at the Sixteenth Street Baptist church, Dr. King tried to rally
people to stand up and be willing to be jailed. They would be jailed for gathering or marching without
a permit. In that packed sanctuary of the church, not one adult stood up--they were too afraid, they
had too much to lose. Finally, the children began to stand up.
While Dr. King was imprisoned in the Birmingham jail, another powerful pastor, the Rev. James Bevel
began organizing the children and youth. He got the football players and the cheerleaders on board
first and they began to get other students on board. They began planning D-Day, when they would
gather at the church and begin a peaceful march to end segregation, to demand equal rights. They
knew when they set foot out the church, they would be jailed.
On the day the signal went out, thousands of children gathered at the church. They emptied the black
schools in Birmingham and nearby areas. On that first day, over 900 children were arrested. The next
day, thousands of more kids arrived and continued to march. Bull Conner ordered the police to sick
dogs on the children, and the Fire Department to disperse them with their fire hoses. In the film, one
student who participated in the marches, now grown, described how when the Fire Department first
used the hoses it dispersed the crowd quickly, because the force of those hoses burned the skin,
knocked people down, and carried them down the street--they were that powerful. But when it
seemed the crowed was dispersed and the hoses died down--about a dozen children were still
standing, holding hands and singing one word over and over again...Freedom.
By the next day, they were prepared for the fire houses. After another day, they were dancing in the
spray, enjoy the cool water on the hot May day. They were not afraid anymore, they were
overwhelming the police. The jails were full; the yards outside the jails were full; the police began
carting the students into feed lots like cattle, but they kept coming. After six days, over 5,000
students had been arrested. The youngest was four years old, but most were 11 years and older.
When they got out they just went right back to the church to march and be jailed again. They knew
their goal was to fill the jails, and they did it. The stood down Bull Connor, and the system of
segregation in the city of Birmingham.
Watching the film, you wonder, how did they do it? How did they have such courage? One answer,
and it is not the only answer, but one answer is, they did it together. One woman they interviewed,
now an adult, who had been a part of the children's march, remembers when the signal came. Leaders
of the movement, older kids--19 year olds, came to the school with signs "It's Time." This girl jump
out of her seat and headed for the window. As she jumped out the window she expected to see her
classmates follow, but it was only her. Understandably, the kids were afraid--they knew if they went
they were going to jail, and they hesitated. But she yelled up to them, "You said you would march,
you gave your word, you promised." And so they did, and they began to stream out of the windows,
out of the doors, out of every exit. How did they do it? Where did they get their courage? They did it
together. They got their courage from one another.
We are far more powerful together, than we will ever be alone. The challenges and obstacles we face
to equality, to respect and tolerance, to human dignity--we will never overcome them alone. Only by
joining our voices together--only by organizing ourselves to act with one voice, united, can we
overcome the greatest challenges we face.
As Unitarian Universalist Mark Morrison-Reed writes,
"The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all. There is a
connectedness, a relationship discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of others.
Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice.
It is the church that assures us that we are not struggling for justice on our own, but as members of a
larger community. The religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow to see all
that must be seen, and our strength too limited to do all that must be done. Together, our vision
widens and our strength is renewed."
May our community live up to this great task. And may we find here, gathered together, stories that
connect us to one another, stories that help us understand the wider struggles of humanity, and the
strength to lead us in common cause.
Closing Words
by Wayne Arnason
Take courage, friends.
The way is often hard, the path is never clear,
and the stakes are very high.
Take courage,
For deep down, there is another truth:
you are not alone.