Ernest Green has come a long way since 1957, when he was one ofnine students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock,Ark., with the help of the National Guard.
Today, Green is the managing director of public finance for LehmanBrothers in Washington, D.C., quite a feat for a young man who whoonce lived with the "petty inconveniences" of the segregated South.
After graduating from Central High, he earned a bachelor's insocial science and a master's degree in sociology from Michigan StateUniversity. Last year, the "Little Rock Nine" were awardedCongressional Gold Medals for enduring the chaos surrounding theintegration of Central High.
He was in Chicago on Wednesday to keynote a fund-raiser for"Facing History and Ourselves," a nonprofit organization that helpsteachers develop a history curriculum that teaches students theconsequences of anti-Semitism, racism and violence.
While I was talking with Green, local civil rights leaders wereleading a march from a worn-down, predominantly African-American andLatino school on the Southwest Side to the modernized Cook CountyJuvenile Detention Center to highlight the state's mixed-uppriorities.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson and about 1,000 marchers used theanniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination tobring attention to what Jackson calls "the gap of embarrassment."
And while all this marching was going on, Chicago police wereinvestigating whether a white Columbia College supervisor was avictim of a hate crime when a black teenager attacked him with a golfclub.
These are indeed puzzling times.
Green, a living legend from the South, comes to a northern citywhere the majority of public schools still are segregated to tell hisstory, hoping that it will encourage students to choose tolerance.
At the same time, Jackson and his followers are trying to raisepublic awareness of a nagging issue that should have been resolved in1954 when the Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education ofTopeka outlawed segregation.
And a black teenager, most likely a product of the school systemthat Jackson is trying to improve, takes out his frustration on awhite citizen who lives in one of the most integrated areas of thecity.
It makes me wonder whether the stand made by Green and hisclassmates made much of a difference.
Unfortunately, the hate remains with us, too. Only now hate is nota white thing. Last year in Chicago, nearly as many hate crimes werecommitted by blacks, 20, as were committed by whites, 22.
"Yes, (integration) was worth it," Green told me with a convincingtwinkle in his eye. "It expanded our opportunities and expanded ourbeliefs and the belief of other African- American children that theycould compete and that they ought to have a broader view of theworld.
"We have to breathe a little life in these decisions. These werereally choices that were made by ordinary people," Green said.
"The tragedy is not getting more young people to believe that theycan control their own destiny and that they can take advantage oftheir environment and widen their options for themselves and theirfamilies for the future."
Clearly, this message is as important today as it was 42 yearsago. But how many people are willing to update this message and carryit to the African-American youths who harbor hatred against whitesbecause of perceived and real discrimination that is still part ofour society?
According to police reports, the teenager who attacked ChristopherKerr, 25, as he walked to his art studio on the South Side, shouted:"You're white and don't belong here," before striking him with a golfclub.
Kerr now says he will move his art studio to the North Side.
The attack, which police suspect is a hate crime, was prompted bythe same thing that Green faced years ago as he walked into CentralHigh School and is the one thing that laws alone cannot eliminate.
Overcoming such hate took courage, and it took people standing upwith Green and his classmates in the face of racial hatred.
Who will stand up for someone like Kerr?
E-mail: marym@suntimes.com
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