Instead, they had a vision for their emancipated brothers and sisters, now confined to segregated neighborhoods: that they would flourish using American ingenuity - exploiting all the possibilities of entrepreneurial enterprise, mutual co-operation; utilizing capital and skills to build strong communities, thriving families and wholesome progress. The organization expanded rapidly and by 1900 included an insurance company, a building and loan association, a publishing company, a business college, a nursing school, and a hospital and boasted nearly 90,000 members[1].

It was a Rotary Club for black folks.

The Cultural Center and museum are located on the famed 9^th Street of Little Rock. The tribe of my youth seemed to think that neighborhoods for African American folks would be dangerous “ghettos.” By the turn of the century, fifty years after the emancipation of the slave population in Arkansas, 9^th Street looked nothing like a ghetto. It was a happening community – full of energy, active commerce, growing families and social progress.

When the markets crashed in 1929 and the Depression hit, the MTA disintegrated as an organization and might had been forgotten altogether but for the creation of the Cultural Center right there on 9^th Street. The MTA may have gone away, but not the community it created. Ninth Street remained a powerful cultural force. Post-WWII it boasted a night-life that featured the likes of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, B. B. King, and Ray Charles.

When plans for Interstate 630 were approved, eminent domain roared right through the business district of 9^th Street and brought the glory days of this rich community to a sad end.

It was preparation, a prelude, for what we will witness tomorrow at the Peace and Justice Memorial (The Lynching Memorial).

After lunch at the Soul Fish Café, our bus pulled up the stunning entrance of Central High School in Little Rock. Built in 1927 at an astronomical cost, mirroring the excesses of the Roaring Twenties, it became nationally known as the most expensive High School campus in History. Until the fall semester of 1957, throughout its long history, like all schools in Arkansas, it was segregated. Whites only.

In 1954, the Supreme Court ordered that all public schools in America be desegregated. Black folks in Little Rock understood the distinct advantages of Central High and pursued access.

That fall, some 200 black students filled out applications, siting the Supreme Court as basis for acceptance. The Little Rock School Board would have none of them. In feign compliance with the federal mandate, the Board established impossible criteria for admittance. A record of perfect attendance. Straight A’s on the report card. That whittled applicants down to 89. But then the Board published names, addresses and parent’s names in the newspaper, a tacit invitation to Little Rock white residents to harass black families seeking entrance. They took to the business of exclusion – with threats and cross-burnings and bricks through front windows and shotgun blasts into the house. Some working fathers lost jobs because their names were in the paper, embarrassing employers who supported those who dare cross racial boundaries, encouraging “race mixing” among the young. That brought the total number of accepted applicants down to nine.

We all agreed, our guide - a uniformed ranger is a master story-teller. His role In the national park service is to invite visitors to relive the intense moments when the “Central Park Nine” arrived for the first day of school. They faced a mob of angry white Arkansans determined to block their access to class. Ranger Randy met us in the Information Center and with passion and power, drew us in. We felt the fear, we heard the voices, we walked in the footsteps of the youngsters put directly in harm’s way, breaking through barriers that to this day opened doors, inspired movements and made history.

I wish I could put in words the power of that visit on all of our lives. Our leader, Pastor John, pointed out that our guide - in appearance, voice and passion – is a dead ringer for Samuel L. Jackson. We all broke out in laughter. “I get that all the time,” the former marine admitted modestly. Then he broke into a spot-on imitation of the great actor.

As we reluctantly pulled away from Central High, we take something of the inspiration of those nine high school kids from 1957 along with us.

That walk to the school in step with those persecuted students mysteriously brought me back to my three visits to Jerusalem and the walk uphill through the harried marketplace on the Via Dolorosa, tracing the steps of Jesus, burdened by his cross, facing the derision of the crowds who celebrated his torture and wished him dead.

It’s a stretch of a comparison – but is it really?

The High Priest who knows our suffering, tested, rejected of men, acquainted with grief.

Maybe that’s why Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas feels like sacred ground.

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[1] From Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_Templars_of_America