(5 of 7)
Nobody moved. "Nigger lover," muttered a man. A voice came from the shadows: "Russian!" A man in a brown suit was full of bravado: "They're just bluffing. If you don't want to move, you don't have to." Meyers snapped out an order: a dozen paratroopers moved into line, rifles at the on-guard position (butts on hip, bayonets forward). Brown Suit held his ground for a moment against the advancing soldiers, then scurried away with the rest of the crowd.
One Last Word. When the class bell finally rang, the Negro students had not yet arrived. District Commander Walker, out of rugged Hill County, Texas (where it is said of the best people: "They kill their own snakes"), called the white pupils into the auditorium, explained his mission: "You have nothing to fear from my soldiers, and no one will interfere with your coming, going, or your peaceful pursuit of your studies . . . One last word about my soldiers. They are here because they have been ordered to be here. They are seasoned, well-trained soldiers, many of them combat veterans. Being soldiers, they are as determined as I to carry out their orders."
A few minutes later a crisp, careful military movement put the nine Negro children safely into Central High School. A jeep rolled through the barricade at 16th Street and Park Avenue, followed by an Army station wagon and another jeep. The Negroes piled out of the station wagon. Three platoons came on the double across the school grounds, deployed in strategic positions. Another platoon lined up on either side of the Negroes, escorted them inside the building. There was dead silence around Central High School.
The Living End. But not for long—trouble was developing at Roadblock Alpha, the day's hot spot. The crowd was growing again. Major Meyers ordered it to move on. Nothing happened—and Meyers was fed up. He rasped harshly over his loudspeaker: "Let's clear this area right now. This is the living end! I'll tell you, we're not going to do it on a slow walk this time."
The crowd scrambled back onto the front lawn and porch of a private home, screaming protests that the soldiers had no right to bother them there. The paratroopers came on, moved up the porch steps, began pushing people off. A Missouri Pacific switchman named C. E. Blake, for days one of the most vocal of the agitators around Central High ("I advocate violence"), grabbed for a rifle, pulled a paratrooper to the ground with him. Another trooper reversed his rifle, smashed its butt against Blake's head. Blake, blood streaming from a shallow scalp wound, scuttled away, shouting to newsmen and photographers as he went: "Who knows the name of that lowlife s.o.b. who hit me?" A top sergeant ordered his men: "Keep those bayonets high—right at the base of the neck."