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Jefferson Thomas, 15 years old, shown in 1957 AP photo. |
Jefferson Thomas, a member of "The Little Rock Nine" who integrated Little Rock's Central High School in 1957, has died of pancreatic cancer.
The Washington Post reports that Thomas died Sept. 5 at a care facility in Columbus Ohio.
Thomas, along with Carlotta LaNier, Minnijean Brown Trickey, Elizabeth Eckford, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed Wair, Terrence Roberts, Melba Pattillo Beals and Ernest Green, integrated Arkansas's largest high school under the watch of the Army's 101st Airborne Division. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent the troops after then governor Orval E. Faubus blocked the students' entrance with the Arkansas National Guard.
Thomas endured bullying and physical abuse while at Central high, but eventually graduated and went on to receive a business degree from UCLA. He served in the army in Vietnam, worked as an accountant for Mobil Oil and the Defense Department.
Of his experience at central, Thomas said: "'I was a skinny little guy. I'd been on the track team in junior high. I could run fast. I looked at it this way: If I'd been in an all-black school and a 6-foot-1, 200-pound guy pushed me around, I wouldn't go flying into his chest. Mentally what would hurt was when little puny guys came up and slapped you in the face. You couldn't hit back'"
Jefferson Thomas was 67.
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1 comment:
I can't imagine what it would have felt like to attend school under that type of circumstance. This is the type of stories our students need to hear, so they will know how good they have it made now.
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