The Fables

Have you ever listened to Fables of Faubus by Charles Mingus?

Mingus wrote it to protest Governor Faubus' use of troops to keep the Little Rock 9 kids out of Central High in 1957.  Here's part of the story that really gets me irked.  

After Eisenhower sent in federal troops and the kids were allowed to enter the school and finish the school year, Faubus CLOSED ALL THE HIGH SCHOOLS in Little Rock the next year. 

“The Lost Year” refers to the 1958–59 school year in Little Rock (Pulaski County), when all the city’s high schools were closed in an effort to block desegregation. One year after Governor Faubus used state troops to thwart federal court mandates for desegregation by the Little Rock Nine at Central High School, in September 1958, he invoked newly passed state laws to forestall further desegregation and closed Little Rock’s four high schools: Central High, Hall High, Little Rock Technical High (a white school), and Horace Mann (a black school). A total of 3,665 students, both black and white, were denied a free public education for an entire year which, increased racial tensions and further divided the community into opposing camps.  


You can read more about it here if you feel like it.  What's weird is this.  The teachers still went to work, in schools with empty classrooms.  Sure, that sounds great when you first hear about it, but let's face it.  It's not right.