Bowie State University students received a call to action from the first Black person to graduate from Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. Their speaker, Ernest Green, was the oldest of the Little Rock Nine, a group of nine Black students who integrated the Arkansas public schools.
Ernest Green, the oldest of the Little Rock Nine (Courtesy photo)
“I see each of you as ‘change agents,’” Ernest Green told students Feb. 15. “My hope is that each of you tries to have this positive impact on the next generation of young people from wherever they come from. You are our future.”
Almost 60 years ago, in 1957, Green integrated Little Rock’s public school system, becoming the first Black person to graduate in the spring of 1958.
“We have to think beyond taking care of oneself and see a broader community out there,” Green said.
He said his biggest challenge in high school was being isolated from a school that supported integration and being secluded from friends of his own kind. He noted that his most difficult class was physics, because his teacher was hard on him. “We had a lot of support,” Green said. “But to this day, I never could figure out whether my physics teacher was the world’s most difficult teacher or the world’s biggest racist . . . and that was a tough conversation to have.”
Ernest Green, the oldest of the Little Rock Nine, called students to influence the next generation. (Courtesy photo)
According to The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, Little Rock was a town filled with White supremacists in the 20th Century, known to have the largest Ku Klux Klan organization in the country. It wasn’t until the Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education ruled to desegregate all public schools in 1954 that there was a shift in the dynamic of public schools nationwide.
“His accomplishment has continued to be not about himself, but about getting the message to others, especially young people,” said Treopia G. Washington, Green’s sister and vice president of Partnerships and Minority Affairs at the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. “He utilizes that experience to try to convey to young people that it’s important to keep your eye on the prize. We were brought up in a home where parents always instill in us that you are only as good as you are to help other people.”
Green said he believes modern problems within public school are because of inadequate funding and lack of student support. According to the Hechinger Report, there is still a huge gap between the graduation rates of Blacks, Latinos, and Whites, with White students still graduating college at a higher rate since 2007.
“He used an analogy where he mentioned how most of the time when we’re going about our everyday lives and active injustice happens, we put our heads down and keep it moving,” said Kayla Rayford, a senior at Bowie. “Attending an HBCU and understanding the struggles of how our institutions were formed, I feel like it’s an obligation of ours to understand injustices, learn about them and also stand up for those who don’t have a voice for themselves.”