A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School

Cartelyou Walls, “Daddy,” is LaNier’s father and one of the most prominent family members in her narrative. He is the third child of Big Daddy and his wife, Henrietta. He is only 15 when his mother dies. Though his brothers move away, he stays in Little Rock and “soak[s] in [Big Daddy’s] work ethic and values” (12). He is a teenager when his sister Margaret introduces him to Juanita Cullins, a fellow student at Dunbar. The two elope before graduating.

When he returns from World War II, he buys LaNier’s family home from his grandfather-in-law for $3,000. It is the only house on the street covered in bricks, laid by Daddy due to his skill as a brick mason. He and Mother allow LaNier great freedom of choice in her life, such as choosing to go to Central and dropping out of Michigan State. When LaNier moves to Denver, Daddy visits her and likes the city so much that he decides to move the rest of the family there.

When LaNier’s home is bombed in her senior year, the police and FBI try to get Daddy to confess to the bombing. They hold him for over two days, beating him and attempting to coerce a confession from him. He does not give one and is finally released, though he is traumatized by the event, and LaNier sees him openly crying.

Daddy is diagnosed with leukemia in late February 1976. It progresses quickly, and he passes on March 2 at 53.

Alongside Daddy, Juanita Cullins, “Mother,” is the most important family member in LaNier’s narrative. She immediately falls in love with Daddy, and the two elope as teenagers. She gives birth to LaNier 11 days after Daddy is shipped to World War II. To support herself and LaNier while Daddy is at war, she gets a department store job, though she is not allowed to touch the cash register or customers. She mostly stays home after Daddy returns but occasionally gets side jobs to supplement his income, especially after LaNier enrolls at Central and Daddy is unable to get work in Little Rock.

Mother is a “kindhearted soul who was ushered through adulthood idolizing the glitz and glamour of black life portrayed in the Ebony and Sepia magazines of the 1950s and 1960s” (xiv). As a result, Mother keeps their house modern and hand sews nice clothes. In the face of the Jim Crow South and LaNier’s battle at Central, Mother remains composed. Neither she nor Daddy dwell on any event too much. LaNier later guesses that it was “easier to paint on her characteristic pink smile and never look back” (xiv) rather than reckon with the racism they faced. Any trepidation she feels about LaNier’s attendance at Central is hidden behind her “June Cleaver face” (61)—an allusion to the mother character in the mid-century sitcom Leave it to Beaver, who is the prototype of suburban American motherhood.

Porter Walls, “Big Daddy,” is LaNier’s paternal grandfather. He is warm and patient, with “mahogany skin and a medium build; ” he is only five feet five inches tall (10). Though he dropped out of school in the third grade, LaNier admires his sharp business acumen. He owns a pool hall and restaurant and always dresses sharply.

As a child, LaNier accompanies Big Daddy to meatpacking houses to make purchases for his businesses. There, he conducts himself “just like the white customers coming in and out,” and LaNier thinks “that Big Daddy must be a rich, important man to get such respect from white folks” (14).

When LaNier asks Big Daddy about his family history, he gets serious and only says, “My grandfather owned the land” (11). He heavily implies that his grandfather was an enslaver who raped his grandmother, an enslaved woman.

Later in life, Big Daddy lives in Seattle. One of his goals is to live to be at least 100. Though he suffers from dementia for more than 15 years before his death, he lives to be 102 before passing on May 1, 1997.

Med Cullins, “Grandpa Cullins,” is LaNier’s maternal grandfather. A contractor and brick mason by trade, he is a “big, imposing man” over six feet tall (8). He is heavyset, with a gravelly voice and gruff disposition. LaNier says that his “beige skin and straight hair gave him the appearance of a slightly tanned white man” (8). His demeanor is no-nonsense and sometimes crude.

He dropped out of the all-Black local college Philander Smith but is “a highly intelligent man” who stays abreast of current politics and has a passion for presidential history (9). He loves baseball, especially the Dodgers after they draft Jackie Robinson. He and Big Daddy travel to Dodgers games together, and Grandpa Cullins takes LaNier’s entire family to their games when they play in St. Louis.

Grandpa Cullins has a penchant for liquor. On the day of LaNier’s graduation, his son finds him passed out drunk, and he does not see LaNier graduate. LaNier does not see him for six years after leaving Little Rock. When the two reunite in the summer of 1965, he seems “thinner and slower” (228). He passes the following spring, which initiates LaNier’s season of loss.

Mrs. Daisy Bates is president of the Arkansas State Conference of the NAACP. Along with her husband, L.C., she owns the Arkansas State Press. LaNier first meets Mrs. Bates when she waits outside Central to meet LaNier and her friend Gloria after they are turned away from registering at Central. From then on, she becomes a mentor and advisor to the Little Rock Nine. Mrs. Bates works tirelessly to organize their everyday safety and win the integration-related legal battles.

She is the public voice in favor of Central’s integration, taking pressure and attention off the nine and their parents. As a result, she is subject to violence from the white population of Little Rock. She receives threatening phone calls daily and has a cross burned in her yard and a rock thrown through her window “that promised dynamite next time” (75). During the year the schools are shut down, Faubus runs newspaper ads blaming Mrs. Bates for the closure and telling her to “find an honest job and go to work” (147).

Her house is a local civil rights meeting place and a headquarters for the nine. There, LaNier meets Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and other prominent civil rights activists. Though Mrs. Bates falls on hard times after the death of her husband in 1980 and almost loses her home, it is eventually declared a National Historic Landmark. She dies in 1999. Her funeral is held on the same day the Little Rock Nine receive the Congressional Gold Medal, but they later attend her memorial.

Thurgood Marshall is the NAACP’s civil rights lawyer assigned to advocate for the Little Rock Nine in their court fights for educational integration. When he is assigned to their case, he is already “high on [LaNier’s] list of heroes” due to his win in Brown v. Board and his earlier defense of LaNier’s uncle and other Black teachers at Dunbar seeking pay equity (77).

LaNier is captivated by Marshall in the courtroom. She describes him as an “attorney who had the swagger and aura of a movie star. I had never seen a black person with more confidence” (79). She is surprised and impressed by how Marshall speaks his mind in a way that demands respect from white people. He wins his case against the school board.

He defends integration in Little Rock against Faubus and the segregationists a second time at the beginning of LaNier’s junior year in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Though Marshall wins again and the Supreme Court confirms his ruling, Faubus shuts down all Little Rock high schools.

Governor Orval Faubus is a figurehead for segregationists and the book’s chief antagonist. Early in his political career, he is moderate and doesn’t stop educational integration in rural areas. LaNier’s parents vote for him twice during this time, saying he is “a man of the people” (64). Once the courts demand that Central be integrated, he takes up with segregationists and begins a years-long fight to stall integration.

He orders the Arkansas National Guard to keep the Little Rock Nine out of Central. Eventually, Eisenhower intervenes and demands that he cease his forcible segregation. Along with the school board, he then organizes a series of legal proceedings to officially halt segregation. These make their way up to the Supreme Court, where they are overturned. In response, the next academic year, he uses his gubernatorial powers to shut down every Little Rock public high school rather than allow integration to proceed. This decision is eventually overruled, and the schools resume the following year. Despite this, he remains a staunch segregationist, regularly using propaganda to besmirch integration.