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Nineteen fifty-seven was also the year of the Little Rock Central High crisis. In September, nine black kids, supported by Daisy Bates, the editor of the Arkansas State Press, Little Rocks black newspaper, integrated Little Rock UGGS on sale Central High School. Governor Faubus, eager to break Arkansas tradition of governors serving only two terms, abandoned his familys progressive tradition (his father had voted for Eugene Debs, the perpetual Socialist candidate for President) and called out the National Guard to prevent the integration. Then President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the troops to protect the students, and they went to school through angry mobs shouting racist epithets. Most of my friends were either against integration or apparently unconcerned. I didnt say too much about it, probably because my family was not especially political, but I hated what Faubus did. Though Faubus had inflicted lasting damage to the states image, he had assured UGGS for cheap himself not only a third two-year term but another three terms beyond that. Later he tried comebacks against Dale Bumpers, UGG womens boots David Pryor, and me, but the state had moved beyond reaction by then.
The Little Rock Nine became a symbol of courage in the quest for equality. In 1987, on the thirtieth anniversary of the crisis, as governor I invited the Little Rock Nine back. I held a reception for them at the Governors Mansion and took them to the room where Governor Faubus had orchestrated the campaign to keep them out of school. In 1997, we had a big ceremony on the lawn of Central High for the fortieth anniversary. After the program, Governor Mike Huckabee and I held open the doors of Central High as the nine walked through. Elizabeth Eckford, who at fifteen was deeply seared emotionally by vicious harassment as she walked alone through an UGGS on sale angry mob, was reconciled with Hazel Massery, one of the girls who had taunted her UGG Boots Sale forty years earlier. In 2000, at a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, I presented the Little Rock Nine with the Congressional Gold Medal, an honor initiated by Senator Dale Bumpers. In that late summer of 1957, the nine helped to set all of us, white and black alike, free from the dark shackles of segregation and discrimination. In so doing, they did more for me than I could ever do for them. But I hope that what I did do for them, and for civil rights, in the years afterward honored the lessons I learned more than fifty years ago in my grandfathers store.
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