Lessons learned at Little Rock

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. —

Fifty years after nine black students marched through the doors of Little Rock Central High School, a key moment in the civil-rights movement, the school and this city are holding a celebration.

The Little Rock Nine — as they are called — have returned to mark the occasion this week. The high school itself, ranked as the 26th best high school in America by Newsweek magazine, has pointed with pride to its integrated student body: 53 percent blacks and 40 percent whites.

Five decades ago the nine — Melba Patillo Beals, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Carlotta Walls Lanier, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas, Minnijean Brown Trickey and Thelma Mothershed Wair — had to walk through a gantlet of jeering whites spewing venomous threats.

The U.S. Supreme Court had declared segregated classrooms unconstitutional, ruling that many districts were operating education systems that were separate but not equal. By the fall of 1957, the Charleston and Fayetteville school districts had integrated peacefully, but agitators targeted Little Rock for trouble.

For three weeks, Little Rock became the focus of a showdown between Gov. Orval Faubus and President Eisenhower, who authorized the use of federal troops who escorted the Little Rock Nine to classes on Sept. 25, 1957.

On Tuesday, they arrived at the high school in three white stretch limousines to mark the anniversary in a two-hour ceremony for a crowd of 4,500 people. Dignitaries including former President Clinton, governors, congressmen and the mayor were on hand to laud their bravery in desegregating the school.

But amid the festivities, there's a lingering recognition that the goals of school integration have not been met.

Equality of education — especially up to the high-school level — has not translated into economic equality. Integrated schools have not stopped Little Rock, like many cities in the South, from further segregating in terms of where whites and blacks live.

The educational gains that blacks have made in Little Rock are dramatic. In 1950, blacks had far less schooling than their white counterparts. Only 11 percent of the city's nonwhite adults had finished four years of high school, compared with 26 percent citywide, according to census data. Today, that gap has almost disappeared: 86 percent of black adults have a high-school diploma compared with 91 percent for the city overall. Those gains mirror the national trend.

But educational achievement remains a problem. At Central High, for example, 83 percent of white juniors scored "proficient" or better on standardized tests in 2006, compared with only 28 percent of African-American juniors. Some charge that the school's abundant advanced-placement courses, which are popular with white students but not with African Americans, separate the races.

Those challenges may help explain why the disparity in college-graduation rates, while improved, remains large. In Little Rock in 1950, the percentage of nonwhite adults with four years of college was less than half the city's overall rate (3.6 versus 8.8 percent), according to census data. Last year, the percentage was more than half the citywide rate (20.4 versus 38.7 percent).

These educational improvements have narrowed but not eliminated the income gap. In 1950, the median nonwhite family earned less than half of the city's median family income (roughly $1,100 compared with $2,425). In 2006, the census found that the median household headed by an African-American male earned two-thirds of the city's overall median family income ($38,400 compared with $58,100). That's almost exactly the national median income for both groups.

Little Rock remains a city divided — physically and psychologically — by Interstate 630, a freeway running through its center that was completed in 1985. Most of its white residents, who make up 53 percent of the population, live north of I-630. Most of the city's African Americans, who make up 40 percent of the population, live south of it. That barrier demarcates neighborhoods in a way that didn't exist in 1957, when working-class members of both races lived, if not in neighboring houses, at least on neighboring streets, says Jay Barth, professor of politics at Hendrix College in nearby Conway, Ark.

Moreover, as in other cities, court decisions requiring busing to integrate schools hastened white flight to outlying suburbs and to the city's new western neighborhoods.

Students at Central High say that although black and white students spend their lunch hour in largely separate areas, they freely cross the color line whenever they want.

Angelica Luster, a junior who is African American, says that sheltered freshmen who come to Central with limited experiences outside their own race develop a multiethnic set of friends by the time they graduate. Anne-Elise Hawkins, a white senior, says she watched a recent football game at a birthday party that was attended by black and white students.

Additional information from The Washington Post and The Associated Press