Hear From One Of ‘The Little Rock Nine,’ January 21 At WCSU

DANBURY — Fifty years after she and eight other African American students passed through the entrance of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., Carlotta Walls LaNier will recount the story of the “Little Rock Nine” who brought school desegregation to the South when she serves as keynote speaker at the Dr Martin Luther King Community Celebration on Monday, January 21, at Western Connecticut State University.

The program commemorating Dr King’s lasting Civil Rights legacy will also feature performances by choral singers and praise dancers. The program will begin at 6 pm in Ives Concert Hall in White Hall, 181 White Street. Admission will be free and the public is invited.

Ms LaNier enrolled in Central High School as a sophomore in autumn 1957. She was the youngest of the nine African American students whose admission precipitated a landmark showdown between segregationist authorities in Arkansas and the Eisenhower administration. President Eisenhower ordered federal troops to secure the students’ entrance in compliance with the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v Board of Education mandating school desegregation.

The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture entry explained that 14-year-old Carlotta Walls, the daughter of Cartelyou and Juanita Walls, decided to enroll in then-segregated Central High School because she sought to obtain the best education available in the Little Rock school system. The encyclopedia article noted she drew inspiration from Rosa Parks, whose refusal to accept segregation on public transportation sparked the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala.

“Some white students called Walls names and spat on her, and armed guards had to escort her to classes, but she concentrated on her studies and protected herself throughout the school year,” the article said. “Walls and every other Little Rock student were barred from attending Central the next year when all four Little Rock high schools were closed, but she returned to Central High and graduated in 1960.”

After graduating from Central, Ms LaNier attended Michigan State University for two years before resettling with her family in Colorado. In 1968, she earned a bachelor’s degree from Colorado State College (now known as the University of Northern Colorado), and took her first job as a program administrator for the Denver YWCA. She founded LaNier and Company in 1977, embarking on a successful career over the past three decades in real estate brokerage, management, and development in the Denver metropolitan area. She married Ira LaNier in 1968 and has two children.

In 1998 the US Congress approved legislation designating Little Rock Central High School as a National Historic Site and awarding Ms LaNier and other members of the Little Rock Nine the Congressional Gold Medal as “pioneers whose selfless acts advanced the Civil Rights debate in this country.” Ms LaNier also has received the Spingarn Medal from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Legacy Award from the National Dunbar Alumni Association. She has served as president of the Little Rock Nine Foundation, a scholarship organization dedicated to ensuring equal access to education for African Americans, and as a trustee at the University of Northern Colorado and the Iliff School of Theology.

At a 50th anniversary commemoration last September at Central High of their historic enrollment, Ms LaNier and fellow Little Rock Nine alumni received praise from former President Bill Clinton, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Arkansas congressional, state, and municipal officials, Peter Whoriskey wrote in The Washington Post.

“It was a day of unmitigated adulation of the Nine, and recognition of how much their determination to attend school had galvanized the civil rights movement,” Peter Whoriskey wrote. “Their decision to enroll despite the dangers, backed by the federal show of force, made it clear throughout the nation that Brown v Board of Education would be enforced.”

For information, call the WCSU Office of Multicultural Affairs and Affirmative Action at 837-8278.