National Affairs: Pains of History

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Through the U.S. South ran the sight and sound, the pain and glory of historic sociological change. Where racism had been growing roots ever since the first slaves for the British colonies arrived in 1619, more Negro children began going to school in the same classrooms with white children. As is often the case in such moments of history, the worst and the best in man—hate and human charity, stupidity and wisdom—came out before the world.

There were the raucous curses of a fat Kentucky harridan and the horrid spit of a North Carolina fanatic. But there was the fine, quiet dignity of a pretty, besieged Negro girl in Charlotte, and the warm and courageous heart of a gentle, white-haired woman in Little Rock. Where men and women of good will and good sense prevailed, the difficult, tradition-shattering, inevitable change moved on.

It was where another kind of man held power that the worst trouble came. In Arkansas, a slightly sophisticated hillbilly named Orval Faubus took hapless note of his power as governor and forcibly kept the Negro children out of Little Rock's Central High School. There was no reasonable explanation for Governor Faubus' highhanded action, except that he hoped to make political capital for himself. But in the long run, he could not hope to win. He was face to face with the power of the U.S. Government, and that Government could not possibly ignore or withdraw in the face of Faubus' challenge to its courts, to law and simple decency. More than that, he and all who fought at his side were face to face with the power of justice and the course of history.