Summary Of A Mighty Long Way

In A Mighty Long Way the author, Carlotta Walls LaNier writes about her experiences growing up in Little Rock, Arkansas. She focuses a lot on her family and those who helped her, she also writes about the differences between white schools and black schools. The latter half of the book focuses onward from the point she enrolled into Central High School (CHS) and beyond in her life. The integration of black students into CHS was a long road filled with hateful individuals, ignorant individuals, and students who just wanted to learn. The name of the book refers to her graduation, she says that she had "come a mighty long way" in order to get to her graduation from CHS (Chapter 12). Although LaNier and the rest of the Little Rock Nine made it

When they arrived at the school the crowd of angry white southerners caught LaNier somewhat off guard, she knew that they would be there, and she did her best to drown them out. While she was able to keep her head up and just walk slowly with her group the racial slurs being yelled got to her and this was the only thing that was not muddled. When they finally got to the school the National Guard was standing there and this was to prevent the Little Rock Nine from entering. LaNier was shocked, she and the others assumed they would step aside to let them in but they did not, and instead commanded them to leave the school. After this day she saw on the news about another student named Elizabeth Eckford, Eckford did not know that they were not allowed to go into the school, because they did not have a phone. Eckford’s not knowing this meant that she walked straight into the crowd, the crowd terrorized her by spitting on her and yelling at her. Eckford was later found in shock sitting on a bench and she was helped by a white woman who saw that she was in distress. This event showed LaNier as well as the others that these people were not ashamed of what

Another event that would change how LaNier perceived white southerners was the way they were treated while they were in the school The Little Rock Nine were treated poorly, to say the least, when they went into the school Not only were white adults disgusted with the integration, the frustrations quickly developed in the kids, this resulted in constant spitting attacks, being pushed into lockers, walls, and yelled at. Often kids would throw ink at her or put glue in her seat. The teachers did nothing most of the time, often people just looked the other way. This solidified that it was not only the adults who were opposed to the integration, the ignorance of the adults had trickled down to kids which made school a living hell for the Little Rock Nine, there were beatings, yelling, and spitting constantly. Another major event that would solidify just how much disgust people had was when the school was shut down for a year, in an attempt to show how dedicated they were to stopping the integration the schools were closed down, which not only affected the black students, but the white students as well. Thousands of kids now had no school to go to which was detrimental to