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My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School
One World/Ballantine
September 2009
On Sale: August 25, 2009
304 pages
ISBN: 034551100X
EAN: 9780345511003
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
When fourteen-year-old Carlotta Walls walked up the stairs
of Little Rock Central High School on September 25, 1957,
she and eight other black students only wanted to make it
to class. But the journey of the “Little Rock Nine,” as
they came to be known, would lead the nation on an even
longer and much more turbulent path, one that would
challenge prevailing attitudes, break down barriers, and
forever change the landscape of America. Descended from a line of proud black landowners and
businessmen, Carlotta was raised to believe that education
was the key to success. She embraced learning and excelled
in her studies at the black schools she attended throughout
the 1950s. With Brown v. Board of Education erasing the
color divide in classrooms across the country, the teenager
volunteered to be among the first black students–of whom
she was the youngest–to integrate nearby Central High
School, considered one of the nation’s best academic
institutions. But for Carlotta and her eight comrades, simply getting
through the door was the first of many trials. Angry mobs
of white students and their parents hurled taunts, insults,
and threats. Arkansas’s governor used the National Guard to
bar the black students from entering the school. Finally,
President Dwight D. Eisenhower was forced to send in the
101st Airborne to establish order and escort the Nine into
the building. That was just the start of a heartbreaking
three-year journey for Carlotta, who would see her home
bombed, a crime for which her own father was a suspect and
for which a friend of Carlotta’s was ultimately jailed–
albeit wrongly, in Carlotta’s eyes. But she persevered to
the victorious end: her graduation from Central. Breaking her silence at last and sharing her story for the
first time, Carlotta Walls has written an inspiring,
thoroughly engrossing memoir that is not only a testament
to the power of one to make a difference but also of the
sacrifices made by families and communities that found
themselves a part of history. Complete with compelling photographs of the time, A Mighty
Long Way shines a light on this watershed moment in civil
rights history and shows that determination, fortitude, and
the ability to change the world are not exclusive to a few
special people but are inherent within us all.
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