One last observation from my time in Arkansas: Little Rock Central High School. If you're a student of civil rights, you may recall that this was the site of the "Little Rock Nine" -- nine African American students who were the first to attempt to integrate into a white public school. Things did not go well as they attempted to challenge the outlawing of segregation: the governor called out the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the students from entering and mobs ensued. After three weeks, President Eisenhower federalized the National Guard and brought in over 10,000 U.S. Army soldiers to escort the students into the school. The Guard remained all year to keep order.
As you can imagine, Governor Faubus was not pleased that "his" troops were federalized and that integration occurred. To prohibit it from continuing, he promoted an act that allowed him to close all four of Little Rock's public high schools for the 1958-1959 school year! Over 3,600 high school students had no avenue for public education in the city.
Stop and think for a minute about what kind of tension must have been present for a U.S. city -- a state capitol no less -- to close all the high schools for an entire year. The emotions were so high and the stakes so prominent: governor vs. president -- all covered on the new medium of television -- that it was hard for either to compromise.
With the formal political factions so polarized, a group of 58 (white) women came together to work to reopen the schools. Known as the Women's Emergency Committee (WEC) this cadre of volunteers advocated to renew teacher and administrator contracts during the closure (so qualified faculty would remain when the schools reopened); they published a report on the economic impact of the closure, and worked with parents of teenagers to accept desegregation. Eventually they were successful and the schools reopened the following year.
The WEC was a way to have smaller, less public conversations and appeal to people's sense of reason. Maybe we need a WEC today to help Congress and political parties find a middle ground. Maybe your organization needs their own version of WEC to help advocate for change and serve as a "translator" between leadership and those who must live with the implications.
In 1997, President Bill Clinton awarded the Little Rock Nine the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian honor. They certainly were deserving for the unimaginable courage that must have been required. Let's also give a moment of applause for those who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make lasting change possible. You don't have to be on the front lines to be a difference-maker; sometimes heroics happen in volunteer gatherings in living rooms too.
-- beth triplett
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