Day 12

My thumbs are sore, they actually hurt from writing so much last night. I need a portable keyboard that connects to my phone because typing with just my thumbs is too tedious.

I slept decently until about 5:00, which was more than I expected. I tried to fall back to sleep, but by then there was a steady stream of traffic on the road and I couldn’t force myself to sleep through the noise. I will be tired today, but maybe I can get to sleep earlier tonight. G3 is still sound asleep. Noise doesn’t impact his ability to sleep as it does mine.

Yesterday, G3 finished Salem’s Lot. Misery—he will only read King at the moment—is only 300 pages. He was worried that he might finish it before we got home and then he would have nothing to read. I totally understand the fear. He asked me if I would please take him to the bookstore to buy a back-up book. How could I say no? I am happy he wants to read. Upon arriving, he went right for the horror section and started reading the back of several King books. After awhile he settled on Carrie and Pet Sematary.

From the bookstore, we drove to Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site. And wow! This is why I like going to multiple places that allegedly tell the same story. When people talk about how history should only be taught by telling the facts, the question that should always follow is: Which ones? Depending on which facts you reveal, which you omit, or what order you place them in can change the narrative completely. Over the years, in my travels with G3, I have come to realize that National Parks try to tell a balanced story. They attempt to give visitors all the facts, or at least facts that are important to various perspectives. The history at the National Parks no longer simply follows the narrative of the European settlers. Even if the truth depicts Americans in a negative way, they tell it. However, privately run museums—like Eisenhower’s House and museum in Kansas—tend to shift the narrative so that the person they are “selling” is depicted in the most positive light possible. They want us to love—or at least not criticize—the person whose life they have put on display.

The story we got today regarding Eisenhower’s role in integrating the schools was much different than the one we learned at his house. In this narrative, he was not the shining hero some history books—and his museum—would have you believe. I spent over an hour at the National Park taking to two rangers and then G3 and I spent a half hour walking through the museum. Eisenhower appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the Supreme Court as a political move. Warren was planning to run for president on the Republican ticket. To keep him out of the race, Eisenhower promised him a spot on the Supreme Court. While the Supreme Court was deliberating on Brown V. Board of Education, Eisenhower pulled Warren aside at a dinner and said, regarding Southern white, “These are not bad people. All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big black bucks.” A comment like that definitely paints Eisenhower as a racist.

I further learned that Eisenhower did not agree with the Supreme Court decision, but he said he would uphold it because his first duty was to serve the Constitution. I guess there is something to be said for him doing his job. When it came to the conflict in Little Rock, he didn’t disagree with Governor Faubus. At first, he had no desire to get involved. But the United States was embroiled in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. We were trying to prove to the world—allies and enemies—that we provided more freedom for our citizens than the Soviet Union provided for theirs. Jim Crow seemed to demonstrate a different truth. White people could claim freedom, African-Americans could not. And the Soviet Union latched on to our hypocrisy in their own propaganda.

When the National Guard refused to let Elizabeth Eckford, and the rest of the Little Rock Nine into the high school, journalists from around the country covered the story. The gas station across the street from the school had a phone the journalists used to communicate with their headquarters. From there, word of what was occurring spread at rapid speed for the 1950s. (G3 struggled to comprehend the significance of the gas station and that one phone. I guess even though he knows phones were different, the concept of news not traveling the speed of light through social media is still strange/foreign to him.) Eisenhower knew the world was watching—judging. He sent in Federal Troops because he knew it would look good on the world stage. He chose the Army’s 101 Airborne Division because they were integrated and because they had training in riot control.

What I didn’t realize, because I’ve never been great about the dates part of history, was that the integration of Little Rock high school occurred two years after a white mob killed Emmett Till. The students knew the consequences of pissing off white southerns, but they wanted to give themselves as much opportunity as possible. They are known as the Little Rock Nine, but there were originally ten students. On girl didn’t persist because her father worked for the railroad. His bosses told him if his daughter continued to try and integrate the school they would fire him. He put his daughter back into the black school, but they fired him anyway. Elizabeth Eckford had to fight her mother first. Her mother didn’t want her to be involved, but Eckford wanted to go to college and felt that the white school would increase her chances and opportunities. Once the students were finally admitted, after being escorted by the army, they were verbally, emotionally, and physically abused by the other students—all year. Yet they kept showing up for school because they wanted something better for themselves. For instance, when the African-American boys were showering the white boys would continuously flush the toilets so the showers would get too hot. They would then spread broken glass on the floor so when the boys would run out of the shower their feet would get cut.

On the first day of school in 1957, the Little Rock Nine were supposed to meet to walk into school together. They didn’t want parents to show up because they were afraid what might happen. The ranger asked G3 how I would have acted if someone didn’t want him to walk into school. G3 didn’t hesitate, he shook his head, “She’d kill someone if they tried to stop me.” He’s probably not wrong. Last minute the plans were slightly altered. Elizabeth Eckford didn’t have a phone so no one could reach her. Therefore, she arrived first. Governor Faubus had told everyone he called in the National Guard to protect the citizens. So Eckford thought they were there to protect her. It was only on her third try to get passed them that they told her they were really there to prevent her from entering.

White people feared desegregation was a communist plot intent on destroying family values. Sound familiar? It makes you think that these family values the conservatives so fiercely protect are all about hate and discrimination. At the end of the school year Faubus utilized a new state law enabling him to close any school forced to integrate. Schools remained closed for a whole year. This prompted white flight and the economy took a hit. White women were angry that their kids weren’t in school. So four women formed the Women’s Emergency Council. At first they operated in secret. They managed to call for a special election and succeeded in getting rid of the segregationist board members. The following year schools opened.

In the museum there was a rotary phone. G3 asked me to show him how to use it. It made me feel old. Really old because it was the exact same phone my grandfather had. After the museum, we walked across the street to the school. It’s a gorgeous building. We couldn’t go in since it’s still an active school, but that was okay because the action took place outside along the sidewalk.

Next, we went to ATA Taekwondo headquarters to walk through the museum. The founder, Eternal Grand Master Haeng Un Lee, met American airman Richard Reed on the Osan Air Force Base in South Korea. Reed sponsored him to emigrate to the United States to teach “Korean Karate.” It always troubled me that ATA often uses Taekwondo and Karate interchangeably. They are different styles of martial arts. Taekwondo is Korean, Karate is Japanese. Having lived in Korea, I cringe when Karate is used because the Koreans do not—or did not—like the Japanese. There was a great deal of bitterness from years of being invaded and occupied. So many times in Korea, I would visit a historical site and the plaque would read something like: “This is a replica. The original was burned by the Japanese in the year xxxx.” Koreans were fiercely proud of their own culture but would never pretend that something Japanese was their own. Today, I asked why he referred to it as “Korean Karate.” One of the masters explained—as I had suspected—that it was a marketing ploy. Americans knew Karate, but not Taekwondo.

When Reed ask the Eternal Grand Master where he wanted to go, he looked at a map and pointed to Omaha, Nebraska. Odd choice, right? Not really. Omaha is close to the geographic center of the country. Eternal Grand Master wanted to start in the center and spread out across the country. In 1969, he opened his first school under the label Midwest Karate Federation. However, while in America he developed Songahm, a new style of Taekwondo. At that point, he changed the name to American Taekwondo Association. He is the first martial artist to document the development of an entire style. In 1977, he relocated to Little Rock, Arkansas.

We also went to the H. U. Lee International Gate and Garden. The gate is a pretty traditional gate, the kind I grew familiar with in Korea. The garden had two Dol (stone) Hareubang statues from Jeju Island. Seeing them took me back to my vacation on Jejudo. (For those of you who have not read my essay about Jejudo, you can find it here: https://www.eckleburg.org/mr-kim-by-elizabeth-jaeger/)

Since it was another 100 degree day, and G3 was melting in the heat, I let him talk me into going to another movie. The Haunted Mansion was—to be blunt—stupid, but not as stupid as I expected. Surprisingly, I did laugh and enjoy parts of it.

We ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Hot Springs. I was excited to eat a cactus taco. I never had cactus before and thought it would be fun to try. Sadly, there was so much salsa and cheese on the taco I couldn’t taste the cactus. Somehow, I feel like that is a metaphor for my life. I just need to work out the details. G3’s favorite part of the meal was the chips and queso. He loves queso and he said it was the best he ever had

Kati closed on the house today. Neither of us are happy. We put in a bid out of desperation. Then our real estate agent harassed Kati to sign the contract the day her dad died. Kati, flustered and in mourning, signed without being clear headed enough to read carefully. I’ve been there. I know what grief does to the brain. Later, she realized she committed to a ridiculous down payment. After the inspection, when we learned how many things were wrong, we made it clear to our agent and lawyer that we wanted out. But instead of working for us, it was apparent that they were working for the seller. They pushed the sale through manipulating and lying to us every strip of the way. The details would make for a long essay. I may feel compelled to write it when I get home. I just wish I knew where to send it to expose the unethical behavior. Anyway, I’ve never felt so violated and taken advantage of. I don’t like living in New Jersey and having to live in a house I greatly dislike will only exacerbate my unhappiness. I don’t think I will ever have a home I love as much as I loved Mattituck.