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What were you thinking and feeling on your first day at Central High?
The first day I went to Central High School, I was joyous and hopeful. I was
certainly somewhat frightened. But I was frightened like any child would be at
a new school. I wondered: Are they going to like my hair? Should I wear a
ponytail? Am I going to dress right? As a black child, I knew about prejudice
and racism. Of course I did. But did I know it led to violence? The answer is
no.
I had heard that they had hanged black people in the rafters of our church,
five or ten years before. However, I don't care what people tell you when
you're fifteen years old. You can not imagine that adults and children can
behave to you in the way that they behaved to us. I wasn't just a dreamer. I
had just come back from Cincinnati, Ohio, where black people were treated
better, and I thought "This is the beginning. This is when Little Rock is going
to become like Cincinnati, Ohio."
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