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StoryCorps: Going To School With The Little Rock Nine

KUAR
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StoryCorps

In 1957, Robin Woods Loucks sat next to Terrence Roberts during an algebra class at Little Rock Central High School. She noticed he didn’t have a book, so she shared hers.

“I knew I’d stepped over the line and he knew I’d stepped over the line and I think I remember saying, ‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’” Loucks said.

Loucks was white and Roberts was black. He was one of the Little Rock Nine—nine African-American students who integrated Central High School under protection from the U.S. Army.

Loucks was followed home that day by kids that spat and threw rocks at her. She received hate mail and vicious phone calls, too.

“But this was beyond that—this was something that one had to do,” Loucks said.

She shared her story with Spirit Trickey, the daughter of Minnijean Brown Trickey, who was one of the Little Rock Nine, in a StoryCorp mobile recording booth in Little Rock, Arkansas.