Desegregated, not integrated
Posted on Sunday, September 23, 2007
Which Central High School did you go to — the black Central or the white Central ?
That might be a fair question for graduates of the celebrated school at the center of so much attention this week.
While Little Rock looks to the past and commemorates the 50 th anniversary of the integration of Central High, many believe that a half century after the Little Rock Nine entered the building surrounded by soldiers, the school may be desegregated, but it is still far from being fully integrated.
Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later is an intimate, deeply personal and thought-provoking documentary by filmmakers and Little Rock natives Craig and Brent Renaud. It airs at 7 p. m. Tuesday on HBO.
The 70-minute film takes viewers behind the iconic facade made famous — or infamous — in 1957 and allows contemporary students, teachers, administrators, employees, community leaders, parents and others to share their experiences with Central today.
As with their previous films Off to War and Taking the Hill, the Renaud brothers present this documentary without narration or even evocative music in order to remove themselves as much as possible from the tale. The technique allows the story to unfold through the words of those directly involved.
Craig Renaud, who graduated from Central in 1992, said he realized that after 15 years he couldn’t assume he knew much about his old high school. He said he and his brother approached the project without any preconceptions. All they knew was they wanted to do a film about Central High today. The film was a year in the making.
“It was important to anchor this in the past... for people nationally who are not as familiar with Cen- tral as we are,” Craig said from his offices at Downtown Community Television in New York. “But because there has been so much done on the past, we wanted the focus to be at the present day and looking forward.” Their main anchor to the past is Little Rock Nine member Minnijean Brown Trickey, who plays a prominent role at the film’s beginning and end.
“IT CAN’T BE 50 YEARS” The documentary begins with Trickey alone outside the school on a quiet Sunday. A flood of memories rushes over her as she surveys the scene.
“This is not supposed to be like this,” she says, struggling with emotions. “It can’t be 50 years. I can’t feel this so strong. It doesn’t make sense. I’m supposed to be over it.”
The film fades to black-andwhite news footage, angry crowds, grim-faced soldiers and defiant segregationists.
“I think they’ll get in here,” says one weathered old-timer, “but I don’t know how long they’ll live after they do get in.”
After a few minutes, the film returns to contemporary times — bustling corridors jammed with students; beefy security guards blowing whistles and directing traffic in the halls; and Principal Nancy Rousseau making the morning’s announcements during Black History Month. Times have changed. Or have they ? ONE BUILDING, TWO SCHOOLS
Rousseau’s words fall on regular classrooms that are predominantly black and on advanced placement classes where a black face is the exception. Central High School is, according to one teacher, “two schools — one white, one black — under one roof.”
The Renaud brothers didn’t start out to film a tale of two Centrals. It just worked out that way.
“It is a minefield that you have to tiptoe through,” Craig said. “We didn’t want to say here’s this problem and whose fault it is. It was more just raising these questions because as we talked to so many teachers and students, this was something that was on everybody’s mind.
“ The phrase ‘two schools in one’ continually gets brought up about Central. Minnijean brought it up and it just kept coming up over and over. “ So we tried to look at it in a complex way and try to give the principal and the school their due credit, because I really do believe they’re trying very hard to deal with a tough situation.” Rousseau’s earnestness and frustrations are readily apparent as she mingles with self-segregated students at lunch and visits classrooms. She explains that at the root of Central’s educational dichotomy are the polar differences in the school’s socio-economic student population. The film graphically demonstrates those differences.
BUSES AND SUVS The viewer follows one senior as she drives her SUV from the student parking lot to her spacious home in Little Rock’s exclusive Heights neighborhood. Her mother is a stay-at-home mom who volunteers in the school office and attends all the parentteacher meetings.
Later, at one of those meetings the camera shows about 20 in attendance. There is only one black face.
The film then visits another student, a 16-year-old black mother of two who lives within walking distance of Central but worries about the neighborhood drug addicts.
The cameras attend a remedial reading class where the teacher laments it’s “too male and too black.”
Brandon Love, a black senior who is the new student body president, is shown driving his SUV to his upper-class west Little Rock neighborhood.
Usually the only black in his advanced placement classes, Love says of Central, “It’s like two schools in one, really. It kind of bothers me that black kids come to school to kinda chill, where white kids come to get an education and they go on and do bigger things in life.”
One teacher agrees.
“White kids come for the academic opportunities,” she says. “Lower-income kids come because they’re in the district and that’s where the bus takes them.”
The film juxtaposes a failing black student who is putting his hopes on a boxing career with the white kids on the golf team whose fathers “are doctors and CEOs.”
A student in a child development class explains that her black peers have a tougher time because more girls are pregnant, their parents are on drugs or working two jobs and family members are in jail.
DREAMING BIG One 15-year-old black student in advanced placement classes, struggling to raise herself from impoverished surroundings, proudly displays a “Dream Big” poster. Asked why advanced placement classes have so few black students, she theorizes black students believe that they won’t do well in all-white classes, so they “stay where they are comfortable, in regular classes.” Her words bring tears to Rousseau’s eyes. The film ends by returning to Trickey as she speaks to an integrated classroom. One black student in the back appears to be sleeping, but that’s not what bothers Trickey so much.
She’s shocked and angered when she realizes that the black and white students are sitting on opposite sides of the room. When an unfazed young black student casually explains, “That’s just the way it is,” Trickey is almost at a loss for words.
The Renaud brothers say those who’ve seen the film around the country find striking similarities between the current situation at Central and their own schools. In that way, Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later should resonate far more broadly.
Craig noted, “With these types of celebrations — like the 50 th anniversary — two comments are so often made: How far we’ve come and how far do we still have to go.
“ Everybody gathers for that day and then we all go about our lives the next day. Hopefully this film can have a life of its own beyond the anniversary so we can continue to question and think about all these different perspectives, and also so we hear a little bit from the younger people outside our daily lives, because obviously when we think of these issues of race or whatever, we think of them through our own perspectives,” he said.
“It’s important to hear the perspectives of those who are living it every day. I hope people take a step back and think of it past the anniversary date.”
HBO will repeat the film at 2: 45 p. m. Saturday and at 10: 30 p. m. Wednesday on HBO 2.
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