By Aaron Allen, The Seattle Medium
King County Metro recently celebrated Black History Month by honoring those who sacrificed so that future generations can explore possibility.
This year’s celebration centered around the Little Rock Nine — the nine young Black students who enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957, while facing racism, segregationist, threats and intimidation in order to uphold their right to a desegregated education.
“I will be forever grateful to our forefathers and mothers,” says Terry White, General Manager of King County Metro. “For taking on a system that said we were less than for enduring pain, for enduring suffering and for enduring death to get us from their place to this place and we are now the ripple and as such we are responsible for what continues.”
In 1954, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown vs Board of Education that state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools were unconstitutional. In 1957, the Little Rock Nine began their journey to upholding that decision.
As the featured speaker during Metro’s Black History month event, Dr. Terrence Roberts, one of the original Little Rock Nine students, talked about his experience and how it affected and shaped his perceptions of not only Little Rock, Arkansas but the world as a whole. After his experience at Little Rock Central, Roberts’ family moved from Arkansas to California, where Roberts continued his education receiving a degree in sociology and a Masters in social welfare from UCLA and then onto a Ph.D. in psychology from Southern Illinois University. Roberts, along with rest of the Little Rock Nine, was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal by then President Bill Clinton.
“I would like to start by saying one of the things that affected me the most growing up in Little Rock, Arkansas was how irrational everything seems to be,” says Roberts. “Even as a very young child it made no sense to me that this was the way life should be organized. I didn’t know what to do about it, but I did have that feeling, that thought.”
Dr. Roberts’s perceptions of the people of the South during his youth was affected greatly by the mindset and actions of those who opposed his quest for an education. At the time, he thought the racist sentiment that he endured was just something that took place in the South, but he soon learned that what he believed to be a southern mentality was prevalent throughout the country.
“It occurred to me at some point that people in Little Rock were probably deranged,” Roberts continued. “Mentally unstable at best. I thought outside of Little Rock probably existed a nation of people who were truly rational creatures, believed in truth, principles of objectivity. That did not last long either. As I grew older and was able to move around Little Rock was prototypical, every place in America was a “Little Rock”.
Roberts spoke on the need for Black folks to be aware of their surroundings and to possess a preparedness that will help one to navigate the pitfalls of oppression experienced by African American.
“If you live in the continental U.S. and you are south of Canada you are in the South,” says Roberts. “It’s important for you to know this for many reasons. Not the least of which, as you try to figure out how to adapt in this terrain, how to navigate your way through it, you have to have a GPS system that is accurate that helps you prepare in advance what might happen to you or around you.”
Roberts’ message on this last day of celebration was to encourage people to discover their purpose and begin fulfilling that purpose for the betterment of not only our communities but the world at large.
“Life is very short comparatively speaking,” says Roberts. “But that’s ok because we have that time between start and finish to accomplish why you are here in the first place. Find out what your purpose is and get busy fulfilling that purpose.”
As we commemorate Black History Month, it is heroes like Dr. Roberts who remind not only about our responsibility but also our duty to carry on in the fight to make the world more inclusive and tolerant for all of humanity.
“The Universe is not complete on any given day until we individually contribute what we have to contribute,” Roberts encourages. “That’s the magic of life folks, collectively involved making certain that this place is better for your having been here and not worse.”
