02-25-04

NATIONAL FIGURE IN THE STRUGGLE FOR RACIAL INTEGRATION TO SPEAK AT ISU

AMES, Iowa -- Iowa State continues its 50th anniversary celebration of the Brown vs. Board of Education court decisionwith March 5 lectures by Dr. Terrence Roberts, a member of "The Little Rock Nine." Roberts will provide the keynoteaddress at the Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity (ISCORE) at noon in the Memorial Union Sun Room, followed bya 7 p.m. lecture in the Great Hall.

Such a moniker hardly captures Roberts' place in history or the repression he endured as a 15-year-old high schooljunior in Little Rock, Ark., in 1957. On Sept. 25 of that year, Roberts and eight other students became the firstAfrican Americans to attend the formerly segregated Central High.

It wasn't the first time the group had attempted to enter the school. Earlier that month, they had been turned away byArkansas National Guardsmen (called out by then Gov. Orval Faubus) who, along with police, reportedly stood by while amob pelted the African American students with rocks, assaulted and threatened them. When the students returned toCentral High on Sept. 23, the National Guard had been withdrawn, and the school was surrounded by Little Rock policeand 1,000 onlookers. Roberts and the other black students were quietly ushered in a side door. But when the crowdoutside learned what had happened, violence erupted, and school administrators were afraid the police wouldn't be ableto control the crowd. The Little Rock Nine left via a side door by noon.

According to the web site centralhigh57.org, U.S. Congressman Brooks Hays and Little Rock Mayor Woodrow Mann asked thefederal government for help, first in the form of U.S. marshals. On Sept. 24, Mann sent a telegram to President DwightEisenhower requesting troops. They were dispatched that day, and the President also federalized the entire ArkansasNational Guard, taking it away from Gov. Faubus. On Sept. 25, the Little Rock Nine entered the school under theprotection of 1,000 members of the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army. The battle for desegregation was far fromover, but eight of the Little Rock Nine, including Roberts, successfully completed the 1957-58 school year.

Roberts completed his senior year of high school in Los Angeles. He earned a bachelor's degree in sociology fromCalifornia State University in 1967, a master's degree in social welfare from UCLA in 1970, and a doctorate inpsychology from Southern Illinois University in 1976. In 1998, Roberts was awarded a Congressional gold medal for hiscontributions in the area of civil rights. Since then, he also has been the official desegregation consultant for theLittle Rock School District. He provides similar services to school districts around the nation.

Roberts, now in his sixties, is chair of the master's in psychology program Antioch University in Los Angeles, and hasa private psychology practice in Pasadena, Calif.

Seating is limited for Roberts' talk during the free ISCORE luncheon on March 5. To register, visithttp://www.admissions.iastate.edu/iscore/iscorereg04.pdfor call 294-6338. Both the keynote address and the 7 p.m. lecture are free and open to the public. Roberts' appearanceis sponsored by the College of Education and Student Affairs.

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