Little Rock Nine's Youngest Member, Carlotta LaNier AMS, "I'm very proud of that diploma"

Moving remembrance by Carlotta LaNier (b.1942), the youngest member of the "Little Rock Nine", completely handwritten and signed, "Carlotta Walls LaNier", regarding what it was like to be amongst the first black students to integrate the all-white High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, including having her home bombed. Single page measures 8.5" x 11". Includes a photo of her composing her remembrance. In near fine condition.

On her personal stationery, LaNier's statement reads in full: "At 14 years old, I am the youngest member of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African-American students who, in 1957, were the first black students ever to attend classes at the previously all-white Little Rock Central High School, in Little Rock, Arkansas. The integration came as a result of the United States Supreme Court case: Brown vs. Board of Education, rendered three years earlier. I hadn't intended anything heroic when I signed up to attend. My 9th-grade homeroom teacher at my all-black Junior High School passed around a sheet of paper in 1957 and asked the class if we'd be interested in attending Central High the following fall. I signed up without hesitation. My father lost jobs and had to travel across the country, sometimes for weeks, to find work.

After the news cameras left the school, we experienced routine harassment and even violence. Despite the constant torment from the white students, I never cried or retaliated. I was one of two of the original students to return to Central High School after the closing of all three Little Rock high schools by Governor Orval Faubus in 1958-1959 to avoid integration. Almost four months before graduation, on February 9, 1960, my home was bombed. Two sticks of dynamite were placed at my home. The explosion removed brick, destroyed three windows, and could be heard from two miles away. My father was away, but I, my mother and sisters were home. Nobody was harmed in the bombing, but it was the first bombing directed at one of us students. I got up that very next morning after my home was bombed and I went back to school because If I had not gone, they would have felt like they had won. I graduated and I am the only female of the Little Rock Nine to participate in graduation exercises at Little Rock Central High School, and I'm very proud of that diploma because I finished what I started."

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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