From Tony's Desk - It's Back-to-School Time!

It was a Back to School season like no other.

Before it was over the whole world was watching, and it all happened 65 years ago this month (September) in Little Rock, Arkansas, a three-hour drive from where I'm sitting right now at Walmart headquarters in Bentonville.?

Back to School season is one of the busiest times of the year for us. This year is no exception as we help families across the country shop for school supplies at an affordable price despite the challenges of raging inflation and the continuing effects of COVID. ?

But none of us should be too busy to pause and look back at the still relevant challenges faced by a handful of Black teenagers on Sept. 4, 1957.?

That was opening day at Little Rock Central High School, a massive classically designed building that served 1,800 students --- all of them white --- and it was the flagship of the city's segregated school system. But that sunny morning was also the day nine Black students 15 to 17 years old attempted to enroll at Central. ?

The "Little Rock Nine" were there as the first small step in the city school system's plan to integrate Little Rock schools in response to the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision ruling racial segregation of schools unconstitutional.?

Brown is the most famous court decision in support of racial justice in education, but it wasn't the first. Eight years earlier, determined Mexican American parents in California ended segregation of their children with an unprecedented lower court victory in the Mendez vs. Westminster case.

In the years after Brown, battles were fought north and south to desegregate schools. But Little Rock was what Pulitzer Prize winning historian Taylor Branch called "the first on-site news extravaganza of the modern television era."

Despite the objections of the Little Rock Mayor and school officials, Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to block the integration of Central High. So when the Little Rock Nine arrived on that opening day, they had to get past jeering mobs on the street only to be turned back by armed soldiers at the school entrance.????

The soldiers were gone when these nine courageous kids returned days later. The students got in, but hostile crowds outside caused the city police to remove them "for their own safety". The sad standoff continued until the end of September when President Dwight Eisenhower sent federal troops to escort the teenagers into school.

Despite this rocky start, four of the nine stuck it out to graduate from Little Rock Central. The others eventually transferred out, but all went on to higher education and successful careers. But the virus of systemic racism in America didn't begin or end with the Little Rock crisis of 1957, and it still affects the education we provide to our children. ?

This spring researchers at Stanford and USC reported that "American schools remain highly segregated by race, ethnicity and economic status."(1) ?Numerous studies and media stories document that children of color too often attend under-financed and under-performing schools that lack the resources of more affluent, largely white school districts.?

Educational opportunity shouldn't depend on a student's race or Zip Code. That's why equity in education is one of the four pillars of Walmart's commitment to help achieve racial equity in America. In the spirit of the Little Rock Nine, we're proud to join the rest of America in making this happen. Because we're all in this together.?

Be Well and Live Better

tony?

(1) Stanford Graduate School of Education;?News Release, May 17, 2022? https://ed.stanford.edu/news/new-segregation-index-shows-american-schools-remain-highly-segregated-race-ethnicity-and

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