On Thursday, Jan. 25, Dr. Terrence Roberts, a member of the Little Rock Nine, spoke to students and faculty at Convocation. Roberts encouraged students to educate themselves beyond the history most people are taught so they can begin to change racist mindsets that have existed in the United States for centuries. After convocation, Roberts also held a Q&A session for faculty and staff.
Most of Roberts’ speech centered around his experiences as part of the Little Rock Nine, a group of young African Americans who became the first non-white students at Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. From 1896 to 1954, segregation was legal and upheld in schools and many other institutions, but it was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Brown vs. The Board of Education case.
“[There were] 335 years where it was lawful to discriminate based on race,” Roberts said. “If you do something for so long, it becomes a part of you, down to the bone-marrow level. [Racism in the U.S. is] a congenital deformity that has crippled this country from its conception.”
Roberts also said that Americans “can’t pretend that racism isn’t still a problem, because we lose the chance to grow and work through the problems that still remain very strong in the U.S.”
In order to grow and overcome the mentality of racism, Roberts suggests “reading voraciously” and searching for real history, not the mythologized histories schools often teach, such as Manifest Destiny, which justified white Americans’ desires to expand all over North America and take over whatever settlements and people got in their way. We need to confront those myths and challenge ourselves to live in reality, Roberts said.
“We are arbiters of a system of being that is immoral, even illegal,” Roberts said. “If we were to confront it, that would cause disruption, but out of chaos comes community. We can’t have community unless we have the chaos.”
Roberts said that once he got the opportunity, he decided he would model law abiding behavior so people could know, “This is how you do it. You go to school. You go to a school where you were previously not allowed by law.” But the people didn’t want that change.
When Roberts and the other eight students came to their first day of school, an angry mob surrounded the school along with the National Guard who had been called by the Arkansas governor to keep the peace, or more accurately, to keep the Little Rock Nine out of the school.
After several weeks, students were still unable to attend school. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent troops to assist them. Once they began attending classes, the other students taunted them, tore their books out of their hands and even tried to fight them, but they continued to go back because “evil does not go away simply because you say ‘go away.’ Power doesn’t give in unless you come back with equal power,” Roberts said.
Jason Hollenbeck, sophomore construction management major, said he enjoyed Roberts’ speech.
“It was a lot more entertaining than most convos,” Hollenbeck said. “He was talking about a serious topic, but he still made it fun and humorous. He’s giving you something to think about while still making you laugh.”
Andrew Korp, sophomore theology major, said, “It’s a very relevant message because even though we like to say that racism isn’t around anymore, it is, and it needs to be dealt with.”