Friday, October 26, 2007

Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later

In between innings last night I was flipping through the channels and came across this HBO documentary and it was as provocative a show about race, America and the incredible division between I have ever seen. It was astonishing.

I spent some time in the Little Rock and I remember asking mostly white folks about Little Rock Central. They said "oh you don't want to go there." We were astounded at why would we not want to see a national monument. Finally, we made it there and it was evident why these white social workers did not want us to go there. The area around Central highschool has become a typical inner city highschool full of the problems that exist, homicides, gang related problems and low performance by the African-American students.

Yet, Central still remains diverse and many whites attend because of the incredible opportunities there. It makes for an astounding documentary, one where you will learn about the Little Rock 9 and how the work that was done has eroded to a point that is disheartening to say the least.

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