One of nine teenagers to first test racial segregation at US schools
in 1957 dies, aged 67
Associated Press in Little Rock
Wednesday September 8 2010
guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/07/jefferson-thomas-little-rock-nine-dies
Jefferson Thomas, who as a teenager was among nine black students to
integrate a Little Rock high school in America's first major battle
over school segregation, has died. He was 67.
Thomas died on Sunday at a care home in Columbus, Ohio, of pancreatic
cancer, according to a statement from Carlotta Walls LaNier, who also
enrolled at Central high school in 1957 and is president of the Little
Rock Nine Foundation.
The integration fight was the first real test of the federal
government's resolve to enforce a 1954 supreme court order outlawing
racial segregation in public schools. After Governor Orval Faubus sent
National Guard troops to block Thomas and eight other students from
entering the school, President Dwight Eisenhower ordered in the army's
101st airborne division.
Soldiers stood in the school halls and escorted each of the nine
students between classrooms.
Each of the Little Rock Nine received congressional gold medals
shortly after the 40th anniversary of their enrolment. President Bill
Clinton presented the medals in 1999 to Thomas, LaNier, Melba Patillo
Beals, Minnijean Brown Trickey, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green,
Gloria Ray Karlmark, Terrence Roberts and Thelma Mothershed Wair.
Clinton issued a statement yesterday calling Thomas "a true hero, a
fine public servant, and profoundly good man".
"Jefferson and I had a long visit when he came to my presidential
centre for the 50th anniversary in 2007, and I was struck again by his
quiet dignity and kindness. America is a stronger, more diverse, and
more tolerant nation because of the life he lived and the sacrifices
he made," the former president said.
In 2008, Barack Obama invited Thomas and other members of the Little
Rock Nine to his inauguration as the nation's first black president.
During his campaign, Obama had said the Little Rock Nine's courage in
desegregating Central high school helped make the opportunities in his
life possible.
"Even at such a young age, he had the courage to risk his own safety,
to defy a governor and a mob, and to walk proudly into that school
even though it would have been far easier to give up and turn back,"
Obama said in a statement yesterday. "Our nation owes Mr Thomas a debt
of gratitude for the stand he took half a century ago, and the
leadership he showed in the decades since."
Thomas played a number of sports and was on the athletics team at
Dunbar Junior high school, but other students had little to do with
him once he entered Central, the state's largest high school.
"I had played with some of the white kids from the neighbourhood,"
Thomas said. "I went up to Central high school after school and we
played basketball and touch football together. I knew some of the
kids.
"Eventually, I ran into them ... and they were not at all happy to see
me," Thomas said. "One of them said, 'Well I don't mind playing
basketball or football with you or anything. You guys are good at
sports. Everybody knows that, but you're just not smart enough to sit
next to me in the classroom.'"
Beals said yesterday Thomas was nicknamed roadrunner because of his
speed. "You could sometimes avoid danger by running fast."
She said by phone from her home in California that Thomas always
seemed to bring a light moment to the crisis.
"He was funny, he had a most extraordinary sense of humour. He did
sustain an enormous amount of damage and pain during the Little Rock
crisis, but no matter what, he always had something refreshing and
funny to say," she said. "It could be the most horrible day and he
would say, 'Yes, but how are you dressed and are you smiling?'"
Thomas also brought levity to the 50th anniversary commemorations,
telling the audience how angry LaNier was with him when he stood up
and cheered at a Central high Tigers pep rally.
Thomas thought the white students were carrying the school flag and
yelling the school cheer. He said LaNier glared at him and later set
him straight: it was the Confederate flag and the students were
singing Dixie.
Born in 1942, Thomas was the youngest of seven children. After
graduation, he served in the US army in Vietnam. He earned a
bachelor's degree in business administration from Los Angeles State
College and worked as an accounting clerk with the department of
defence, retiring in 2004.
The Arkansas governor, Mike Beebe, praised Thomas's lifetime of
service.
"Arkansas and America have lost an unassuming hero whose role in the
fight for equality and justice will never be forgotten," Beebe said.
Following the 2008 election, Thomas said in an interview that he
supported Hillary Clinton in the Ohio primary and he also liked former
Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who made a bid for the Republican
nomination.
"It would have been a hard decision for me to make if Huckabee was
running against Obama," Thomas said.
Still, he said, he was overjoyed with Obama's victory.
"This was really the non-violent revolution," Thomas said. "We went
and cast our ballots and the ballots were counted this time. I'm
thinking now we've got to do something. I don't know what. But there
are a lot of things Obama ran on, what he's saying he wants to do."
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2010
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