Today, Mai, Chris, and I visited the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site where one day in September 1957, the “Little Rock Nine,” who were 9 black students, tried to attend what was an all-white school in an attempt to end racial segregation in schools. They were prevented from entering the school by a mob of hundreds of whites and the Arkansas National Guard ordered by then racist Governor Faubus. The Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling meant nothing to Faubus and the majority of white people of Little Rock, who insisted integration would ruin their “traditional values” and ways of living. The Little Rock Nine were pushed, screamed at, kicked, hit, and spat on to the point that one of 9 wearing a dress said it was soaked to the point that she had to wring it out when she got home. Almost 60 years after this event occurred, segregation still exists in our neighborhoods and schools, as well as unfair treatment of non-whites in society whether it’s conscious or subconscious. It made me sick to relearn all the things I had learned in history classes growing up — that the police and National Guard did nothing to help these kids simply because of their skin color. They just stood by and watched; in other cases, as with the Bloody Sunday in Selma, they actually beat them, tear-gassed them, and clubbed them. 

The world has changed a lot since the Civil Rights Movement, but I will never say that we’re color blind, that race doesn’t matter, or that blacks and browns and Asians and whites all have the same rights and opportunities because that is just not the case for anyone who has any perspective or keeps up with the news or spends time with anyone who is not the same color as they are. Some people, in their deluded, ignorant thinking, say that race doesn’t matter anymore simply because we’ve had our first black president. Barack Obama is the exception; we all know he’s not the norm of what we stereotypically think of in the black community. Yet, I will also not be the person who is so extreme as to say that nothing has changed since the 60s. Police brutality still exists, but not to the degree that the Freedom Riders experienced. It’s not normal to be black and get spat at and called the “N” word regularly on the streets or in school and have law enforcement or teachers not do anything about it. We also don’t have separate “whites” and “colored” water fountains, bathrooms, or bus sections. I can’t even fathom how bad it truly was 60 to 70 years ago.

I’m still waiting for the day when we can stop discriminating based on the color of our skin or hair and judge people solely based on their actual character. As congressman John Lewis said at the Salesforce Connections conference, we just need to love and support each other. It seems corny, cheesy, and/or trite out of context, but it makes sense. If we cared about each other more, maybe the Little Rock Nine wouldn’t have been so intense. If more black people had supported the Nine, it could have been a bigger success, and the black students trying to integrate could have actually gotten into the school that day and gone to class. If more white people stood up for the students in those mobs and in the classroom, they could have set a better example for their white friends and families. The power in numbers cannot be underestimated.