Little Rock, AR

Day Two: Little Rock
I came to this city not really sure what to expect. By the end of the day, I felt as though I’d experienced multiple parts of Little Rock and come away still not really sure what it means to live in this city in 2009. I found our day was completely action-packed and emotionally draining, but I’m really grateful I got to experience all that we did.
We began by visiting the museum dedicated to detailing the history of the Little Rock Nine at Central High School, the scene of America’s most visible struggle for educational integration. I was extremely impressed with this museum and highly recommend anyone passing through the Little Rock area to visit this historical site. In my sociology class last semester, we had learned about how public schools in America have become more segregated over the past decade or so, after making fairly significant progress after the Little Rock Nine and other parts of the civil rights movement. A certain part of an article by writer and educator Jonathan Kozol written in the early ‘90s reminded me of a story told by one of the Little Rock Nine in a video in the museum. In this video, one of the African-American students tells how at her all-black school she had to take a class in laundry, because basically she was being trained even in her public school to become someone else’s maid. In Kozol’s article, he speaks of talking with a female African-American student at a high school in L.A. who was required to take a sewing class (for the second time) even though she wanted to be a doctor and had wanted to sign up for a science class but was directed by her counselor to stick with sewing. It makes you wonder if, as our group has been discussing, progress breeds complacency? We like to think we as a nation have come so very far in the realm of equality for all, but perhaps what progress we have made is overshadowing a host of unresolved issues that remain unequal in many different ways. We heard a really interesting story about when this museum held its opening ceremony in 2007. It was a ticketed but free event and someone called in advance to reserve 200 tickets, almost all of the available seats. When opening day came, almost no one showed up; it turns out that a bitter group from the “lost year”, the year after the integration battle when Central High School closed for a year, had reserved all the tickets purposefully to make a statement about integration and the museum. How has Little Rock really changed in the past 50 years? I don’t have a definite answer after one day but think it is a question worth asking.
One of the most valuable parts of the day for me was being able to talk with the two museum guides. We asked them both what it meant to them be an American and (I wish I had our video of them talking, hopefully we’ll be able to post that soon) their answers were simple yet so beautiful, and me summarizing them won’t do it justice at all. One of them said America meant that you had the freedom to express who you are, that it gave you a chance to follow your dreams and be who you wanted to be. The other museum guide compared her relationship with her country to a teen’s relationship with their mother; you may fight with your mom and say “I hate you” but once you get past that conflict, you realize that she is your mother and you love her more than you could ever express- she said that America is her country and she is part of America and she is so lucky to be able to claim that as her own, that she is just as important part of America’s history as anyone else is and that this country gives her the opportunity to make her part of history important.
Next we visited the Clinton Presidential library, which was relatively interesting in showing the good policies and programs of Bill Clinton, but just like Graceland which featured Elvis's idealized self, the Clinton library (which is actually a group of exhibits about his presidency, in case you did not realize this was not a library of books, which is what I had thought it was going to be) simply paints a rosy picture of the high points of Clinton's career. After this we walked over to a festival being held at Heifer International headquarters, which is a hunger and poverty relief aid program that lives by the motto "not giving a cup of milk but giving a cow"; they believe in giving people livestock to provide them with their own food and products they can sell to create their own income. This was a very interesting learning experience and I intend to research this program in the future.
We had a delicious lunch at a local soul food café and then in the evening went to a neighborhood non-denominational church. It was an interesting and eye-opening experience to say the least. From the very beginning of the service, the members were beyond welcoming to us and part of the service included the whole “hug someone next to you and tell them you’re glad they’re here” deal, which was so genuine and joyful. Their worship was incredibly energetic and the music was definitely different from what I was used to in church services, but I enjoyed that part of the service as well. The message that their pastor delivered, without going into a lot of detail, was not one that I could recognize in any idea I have of Christianity and God, and I felt that it could potentially be very damaging to the people in that community. This was extremely hard to sit through and the worship service proceeded to appear more manipulated by this church leader in a way vividly reminiscent of televangelism (and this service actually did appear to be televised) at its most dramatic, until the service abruptly ended after the money collection had finished. I left the service feeling confused and cheated, like the curtain had revealed the wizard to Dorothy and it turns out it was just a man looking for a little power and adoration. Though our first religious experience on our trip left me with a bad taste in my mouth, I was grateful for how our day went and the experiences we had. In seeing the enormous courage of the Little Rock Nine and other exhibits in that museum about civil rights of all kinds, I was humbled by their determination and bravery and proud to call myself an American alongside such great people. In the museum guides I found kindred spirits who were able to express things I myself feel about America that I guess I had never been able to articulate, that no matter what things go wrong in this country, America is mine and I have a place in it and I am awarded so many opportunities to pursue an identity and my goals in a way that citizens of other countries can only dream of. In the church service, I saw in the members of this faith community, a common desire for hope in something greater, something to give their everyday struggles and hardships true meaning, with is something I can certainly identify with, though my struggles cannot compare with theirs. Little Rock challenged me and has made me look forward to other surprises along our journey.