Honoring human rights icon Carlotta Walls LaNier

By D. Carene Bull

Carlotta Walls LaNier

When I entered the room, a few eyes followed me. I noted that the room was full, with about 40 African-American students and a handful of other races. Waiting for the lecture to start, I wondered: what does an iconic historical figure look like in real life? The image that kept playing in my mind was the vivid black-and-white footage of the Little Rock Nine escorted by armed U.S. Army soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division up the steps of the high school amongst an angry crowd.

To be honest, that whole incident seemed so far away and long ago that it hadn’t occurred to me that the members were still alive and living amongst us as everyday people. Carlotta Walls LaNier has been living in my home state of Colorado since she moved here to attend college decades ago. When I received the email from the BLSA (I’d signed up for their distribution list) saying that Ms. LaNier would be speaking, such issues as integration and segregation seemed so far removed from my life and the present. But I recognized the amazing opportunity to learn from someone that lived through segregation in the South, the youngest girl of the Little Rock Nine, and I didn’t want to miss it.

Ms. LaNier stood in front of us, a roomful of bright-eyed, optimistic law students, a 67-year-old woman with a robust spirit. As she spoke in her smooth, steadfast voice, I could see her mixture of strength and humility. Shoveling forkfuls of the soul food into my poor, hungry law-student mouth, I listened intently to her message of education, progress, hope and resilience.

At 14 years old, Ms. LaNier had walked into the middle of the integration battle. She endured harassment from her classmates, teachers and town members until she graduated. Of the nine students integrating Little Rock Central High School, she was the only one able to participate in the official graduation ceremony proceedings.

As a child deciding to integrate the school, she simply wanted access to the best education that she could receive. Labeling herself “an old relic of history,” Ms. LaNier told us she is “ready to pass the torch to a new generation to push ahead.” She shared with us that, as a woman and mother, she tried to teach her own children to have confidence, to set goals, and to see things through to the end.

She told us that she had not expected to see an African-American president in office during her lifetime. She was, however, “amazed” by the mobilization of the youth in Denver and in the nation as we voted Barack Obama into office. She also said she hoped that by the end of the year, we would stop calling him our first African-American president and simply call him President of the United States.

Listening to Ms. LaNier, I realized that integration wasn’t as remote as I had thought. I saw that it had directly impacted me. In Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1, the U.S. Supreme Court found de facto segregation, which was considered insufficient grounds for judicial intervention, but the court asked Denver to start citywide busing to encourage racial balance.

In the very late 1970s, the school system bussed my older sisters into an inner-city elementary school, which they attended in the name of integration until the program was phased out. Later, my sisters were the only two white girls in elementary school class.  My parents always made the effort to surround us with people from a variety of backgrounds, and busing wasn’t against their ideas of inclusion.

I firmly believe that tolerance and education begin in the home, around the dinner table. My parents escaped the city when I was young because they wanted more land in the countryside. This dramatic change left my sisters feeling like outsiders, surrounded by white people for the first time since they were bussed. My sisters ardently took over supplementing my education with books and movies about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.

In elementary school, I knew of black people only through the books I read and the movies or television shows I watched. In high school, the civil rights movement seemed to be just a paragraph in my history textbook. However, my true racial education and experience with integration did not come from the classroom, but on the basketball courts on which I played in junior high and high school.

I came of age playing with people of all racial and cultural backgrounds through my high school team and in the AAU competitive leagues. Integration came from teammates and teamwork. For the most part, I was unaware of cultural differences because we were so focused on our common goals. Hearing Ms. LaNier’s story brought the remoteness of the past into the present.

Then, one of the black law students in the audience thanked Ms. LaNier for everything she had gone through because black students today wouldn’t be where they were without the Little Rock Nine. I wanted to thank Ms. LaNier personally, too, but I felt uncomfortable raising my hand. I didn’t know how my classmates would react because they might not think it was my place to speak about how her actions have touched my life. I wanted to express my gratitude, because I cannot imagine my life without my friends, whom I consider family.

The benefits I have received from integration are liberating for me. They have opened up worlds through the voices of my friends, worlds that I would otherwise not have known. I think about the people I love that I wouldn’t be able to have by my side in a restaurant or a classroom.

I recognize the need for us to encourage more young black people to pursue higher professional education, such as law school. When I entered law school in Denver, I was shocked that there was only one black male in my entire entering class, although my school has a healthy population of Arabic, Asian, Indian, Native American and Latino students.

Carlotta Walls LaNier left us with a message that more must be done to further legal justice. She encouraged us young law students to look to Thurgood Marshall as a role model, because lawyers are the foot soldiers and watchdogs of the law to ensure that human rights are being upheld and further progressed. When she said this, she hesitated, looking at the law students sitting before her. I wondered, was she directing this message solely towards the members of the Black Law School Association? Or was it meant for everyone? It is a universal message, and part of my American identity. Which leaves me to wonder: what is my role in the future in regards to encouraging not just more diversity, but participating in each others’ lives beyond mandated quotas?

What is my place in all of this?

I am not speaking from a place of naiveté or white guilt, but as a young, aspiring white woman attorney with a genuine commitment to strengthening my nation and living my life with integrity. I think about when I finish law school and pass the Colorado Bar exam. I will have the privilege of taking the Colorado Attorney Oath of Admission before becoming sworn-in and admitted to the practice of law. In that Oath, I will have to solemnly sear that:

I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Colorado;

I will maintain the respect due to Court and judicial officers;

I will employ only such means as are consistent with truth and honor;

I will treat all persons whom I encounter through my practice of law with fairness, courtesy, respect and honesty;

I will use my knowledge of the law for the betterment of society and the improvement of the legal system;

I will never reject, from any consideration personal to myself, the cause of the defenseless or oppressed;

I will at all times faithfully and diligently adhere to the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct.

These are words that I will be guided by throughout my life. Hopefully, all my peers will take these words to heart, too. As aspiring attorneys, we have a responsibility to our families, communities and peers to take a moment to think about how far we have progressed as a nation, and what we hope our individual roles will be in the future.

Because I did not raise my hand to address Ms. LaNier directly, now I am taking the time to thank her. In Women’s History Month, I pay tribute to you, Ms. Carlotta Walls LaNier, as a strong, black, trailblazing woman, mother, and historical icon.

Thank you, Ms. Carlotta Walls LaNier, for walking up those stairs that fateful day and seeing it through until graduation. Your courage in the past and encouragement in the present has had a profound impact on me. I am deeply grateful that I joined my fellow law students in hearing your story and for the inspiration and example that you have provided for us all.

D. Carene Bull is a law student at the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law.