Digby: No Way, Baby

Warning: Contains descriptions of racial abuse--Dictynna

This week is the 50th anniversary of a seminal American event --- the desegregation of Central High in Little Rock Arkansas. It's a different world. But not different enough.

David Margolis has written a heart-rending profile in this months Vanity Fair about one member of the Little Rock 9, the brave African-American teenagers who faced the hostile white crowds and even the Arkansas National Guard, to attend high school with the white students of their small city. Here's how Margolis describes that first day when Elizabeth Eckford tried to walk to school:

Elizabeth's knees started to shake. She walked toward Central's main entrance and tried a third time; again, the soldiers blocked her way, but this time told her to cross the street. Now the crowd fell in behind her, shouting: "Lynch her! Lynch her!" "No nigger bitch is going to get in our school! Get out of here!" "Go back to where you came from!" Looking for a friendly face, she turned to an old woman, who spat on her. Before long, some 250 whites were at her heels. She knew she couldn't go back the way she'd come. But if she could only get to the bus stop a block ahead, she thought, she would be safe. She wanted to run, but thought she might fall down. Recording it all was 26-year-old Will Counts of the Arkansas Democrat. He felt sorry for Elizabeth, but he had a job to do; he just hoped he had enough film. "Lynch her!" someone shouted. "Send that nigger back to the jungle!"

It was a very ugly day. The kids were turned back. When they managed to get into Central High a few days later, the angry mob threatened to storm the school. Several days after that, a reluctant President Eisenhower sent in the 101st Airborne division and the Little Rock 9 were allowed into the school.