LITTLE ROCK — A group of teachers and students who were at Central High School during the school's desegregation 50 years ago greeted each other as old friends Saturday.
They met at the home of Janice Swint, the 1957-58 class vice president, to reminisce about their days at the high school.
"I remember coming to school and a 101st [Airborne] helicopter was on our practice field," said Bill Hicks, a track team member and football player at Central. "I wondered where we were going to practice."
Ralph Brodie, Central's class president in 1957, praised the teachers, four of whom wereat the gathering, for maintaining order and integrity in the school while in the national spotlight.
The former students and teachers at Saturday's gathering said that the racial prejudice within the school was limited to a handful of students, and that for the most part, the Little Rock Nine were welcomed by the student body.
None of the students who became known as the Little Rock Nine attended Saturday's event.
Some of the Little Rock Nine have said in interviews over the years they were physically and verbally harassed in the school.
But some of the individuals have also said in newspaper accounts that there were white students who treated them respectfully.
Recalling the 1957-58 school year, Ernest Green said in an October 2006 interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that initially, white students helped the nine. But that friendliness subsided as those students were ostracized for their efforts.
During the gathering Saturday, the students and teachers sat in small groups, spending the time remembering 1957 and catching up on their lives.
Brodie gave each of the four teachers a copy of his new book, Central In Our Lives, co-written by Marvin Schwartz, a local author.
"The same few students who caused trouble before [desegregation], were the same ones who were in trouble after the black students came to school," Brodie said.
His book tells the "third side" of the story, he said - that of the other 1,850 students.
"Historians and media have, perhaps naturally, focused on only two sides of this multifaceted story: that of the Little Rock Nine and that of the problem students who opposed desegregation and bullied the Nine," Brodie wrote in the foreword of the book.
Brodie said that prior to the start of school, a committee had been formed to have a welcoming day for the black students, but that it was rescheduled and eventually canceled because of death threats.
The former students and teachers agreed that most students just went on with their normal activities.
"You could count on your hand the number of students who caused problems," said Paul Magro, an industrial arts teacher at Central.
Magro said that he thought racial hostilities within the school were played up by the media.
Lawrence Mobley, who wascoaching at Central in 1957, agreed. He said many of the incidents were a matter of routine misbehavior, not uncommon in any high school of the time.
"Most of the adversity was outside on the streets," he said. "We had to prepare as always."
More than the inclusion of nine black students in their classrooms, the former Central students were concerned with the presence of troops interfering with extracurricular activities.
"All my husband wanted to do was play football and maybe get a date on the weekend," said a former Central student, who didn't want to be named.
"We just wanted to go to school."
Arkansas, Pages 19, 21 on 09/23/2007