Herbert

The day after the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the Indiana Daily Student declared, “Freedom Home Run!” It was May 18, 1954. Yet, the most violent battles to enforce school desegregation were still some years away.

Among the best-known photographs of these school desegregation efforts following that monumental court decision are those taken by Will Counts, an IU professor emeritus and Arkansas native who passed away in 2001. Counts’ photographs and the story behind them appear in his book, A Life is More Than a Moment.

One photograph, in particular, has since been seared in our national memory: the face of a 15-year-old Central High School student is contorted by hatred as she taunts another girl walking ahead of her, who is the same age but of a different race. Some years later, Hazel Bryan Massery would telephone Elizabeth Eckford to privately apologize for what she had done.

On the 40th anniversary of the desegregation of Little Rock schools, Professor Emeritus Counts invited Hazel and Elizabeth to come to IU. During their visit, the two posed for another photograph that reflected their shared desire for reconciliation. It was a testament to the importance of both forgiveness and friendship. Hazel noted that she had grown weary of being “the poster child of the hate generation. My life has been more than that one moment.”

Two years before the faces of Elizabeth and Hazel were immortalized, another series of photographs caused a firestorm. In 1955, the small farming community of Hoxie, Ark., decided to integrate its schools. The first day of school proceeded without incident. A photographer from LIFE magazine documented the students playing together and even holding hands.

When the LIFE story appeared in print, opponents of integration converged on Hoxie to organize resistance and encourage parents to withdraw their children from school. Shots were fired into the homes of black students. School board members received death threats. But neither the school board nor its supporters backed down. These community heroes were soon joined by many others throughout the South who also demonstrated their commitment to the effort of assuring equal educational opportunity.

Hoxie’s impressive story is now being shared in a documentary entitled Hoxie: The First Stand, which airs this month on WTIU. It is a story well worth telling because it shows that racism, fear and bigotry can be conquered through effective communications and broad-based community efforts.

Although the authors of the 1954 IDS editorial supported the Brown decision that made the Hoxie experience possible, they also could see its limitations. For example, they observed that, “Prejudice can’t be ‘legislated’ from the mind. No amount of law can force a person to forget lines of race, color or religious differences. But by getting rid of the existing prejudice-encouraging laws we can begin re-education of the human mind and emotions.”

Communities of learning such as ours can learn a great deal from these important lessons of the past. As a public institution of higher education, IU is dedicated to the core principle of inclusion established by law 50 years ago and to the process of dialogue in which both mind and emotion are engaged.

No one can deny that a diverse community poses more challenges than a homogeneous one. Indeed, inclusiveness entails the challenge of dealing with ideas, attitudes and values that may be inconsistent with some of our own. IUB has experienced this in recent public debates about the Thomas Hart Benton Murals, an Affirmative Action Bake Sale and controversial statements about sexual orientation posted on a Web site.

Through our commitment to respectful dialogue in the face of such differences, we make IU campuses living reminders of the high value a democratic society places on equal opportunity and freedom: freedom of speech, of expression and of intellectual inquiry. We also reaffirm the important lessons that Hazel and Elizabeth learned about communication, reconciliation, forgiveness and friendship.

The golden anniversary of the Brown decision provides a valuable opportunity for us to reflect on these critical lessons, freedoms and courageous choices made by individuals in Little Rock, Hoxie and so many other places where faith in the value of diversity and community inspired ordinary people to do extraordinary things.