[Ernest Green] The local newspaper, the Arkansas Gazette, at that time
indicated that the Brown decision was gonna change
the face of the South forever.
I remember those words and I thought to myself, "Good,
'cause I think the face of the South ought to change."
I will not force my people to integrate
against their will.
[Green] The governor of the state, Orval Faubus,
decided that he was gonna use Central
as his point of resistance.
None of us of the Nine anticipated that the resistance would
be as strong as it was.
The night before we were to go to school,
the Governor called out the Arkansas National Guard,
unbeknownst to us.
And when we appeared at Central the first day,
the National Guard was there to bar our entrance
and let white students go into the school.
What it was like,
it was rejection that I had never experienced like that.
It seemed to me that if they were going to all
of this trouble to keep me out,
there was something bigger than my simply going to class.
Only when we got home from school that day
did we realize what an ordeal, personal ordeal,
Elizabeth had gone through, and that she certainly faced more
of the mob directly.
I always applaud the fact that she was able to keep
both her composure and try to figure out
how to get out of that.
We started school on the 25th of September.
[Reporter] President Eisenhower sends 500 troops
of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army.
[Green] It was a terrific feeling that President of the United States
would send troops to escort us into school.
I didn't know what was gonna happen after that.
It was like going to war every day.
You had students who tried to use as much verbiage
as they could to intimidate us.
We had threats and comments that,
you know, we would be killed.
For all of us, we decided that this was a year
that we were gonna support each other.
We were gonna try to do as well as we could
in academic work.
Some were a lot smarter than me, but I also was determined
that this year I was gonna graduate from Central.
The principal of the school told me at one point
along the way that I didn't have to come to the ceremony
and they would mail me my diploma.
And I thought, "Listen,
I didn't go through all of this to pass up the ceremony."
Maybe the world thought that, after Little Rock,
everything is gonna be fixed.
And one of the important pieces, I'm sure,
I don't need to remind anyone, that the history
of slavery in this country, it makes it very difficult
to overcome a lot of issues on race.
We're a long way from being perfect,
but we certainly are not what we were when I started out.
I believe that our participation at Central is one
of those many steps that's gone to change this country
for the better.