The First Twenty-Five by LaVerne Bell-Tolliver

Author:LaVerne Bell-Tolliver [Bell-Tolliver, LaVerne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781610756242
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Published: 2018-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

Southwest Junior High School

Two students desegregated Southwest Junior High School, Henry Rodgers and Wilbunette Walls. At the end of the year, however, only Henry remained and continued through to the completion of the eighth and ninth grades. They will share their experiences that led them to make separate choices.

Henry Rodgers

“I look back sometimes, and I wonder.”

[I am] Henry Rodgers. . . . My date of birth, 1/9/49, which is January 9, so my birth date and year is one and the same . . . I was born here in Little Rock, raised here in Little Rock, attended school here in Little Rock . . . all of my life with the exception of the five years I was away at, enlisted in the US Air Force. The rest of the time I’ve been here in Little Rock.

What school did you attend . . . junior high school?

Southwest Junior High School here in Little Rock.

You began at the seventh grade?

Right.

How many other African American students were there?

There was only one other, Wilbunette Walls.

Did you know her prior to attending this school?

Yes, we grew up in the same neighborhood. . . . My parents and her parents were best friends, so we were good friends.

You finished the ninth grade there, right?

I was the first Black to graduate from Southwest Junior High.

How did it wind up that you were the first Black?

Wilbunette attended Southwest the first year along with me, and then she had . . . to have surgery on her feet, so she had to drop out of that. . . . I . . . finished the last two years alone at Southwest. . . . It was quite an experience . . .

How . . . did you first learn that you were going to attend Southwest?

Well they were having . . . community meetings. I think Mr. Ozell Sutton was one of the civil rights leaders at the time in some of those meetings. . . . They were asking for volunteers to attend these schools in your neighborhood. . . . Southwest was closest to me, and I decided that I would attend.

You made that decision?

Yes ma’am.

What did your parents say . . . ?

They were very supportive, especially my mom. She would take me every day. . . . We continued to have those meetings even after we had started attending school to kind of update things on how things were going at the time . . . All the students that were integrating at the time were part of the meetings. . . . We’d come together and kind of share experiences and information about what had taken place that week or whatever the time period was.

What did your parents do to support you during this process and to prepare you to go into Southwest?

Well . . . they always told me keep my head up and don’t let them get me down. They knew that they would be against my attending there,

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