Thelma Mothershed Wair, a member of the group of nine teenagers who made history in 1957 when they became the first Black students to attend a previously segregated high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, passed away on Saturday aged 83.
Mothershed Wair’s sister, Grace Davis, told The Associated Press that she died at a hospital in Little Rock after battling multiple sclerosis. As previously reported by Face2Face Africa, Mothershed Wair and eight other Black students became known as the Little Rock Nine when they integrated Little Rock’s Central High School despite being threatened and insulted by White segregationists.
The Little Rock Nine integrated Central High School after the Supreme Court of the United States passed a judgment declaring the segregation of public schools unconstitutional in the famous Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954.
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The judgment by the Supreme Court paved the way for the then-all-White school to open its doors for “people of color” to apply for enrolment. Despite threats and warnings from segregationist groups and disapproval from the then Governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) selected nine black students for enrolment at Central High School.
On September 4, 1957, after several attempts by the governor to prevent integration, the Little Rock Nine, namely Gloria Ray Karlmark, Elizabeth Eckford, Terrence Roberts, Melba Pattillo Beals, Ernest Green, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Jefferson Thomas, Minnijean Brown and Mothershed Wair made their way to report for school.
When they got there, however, armed National Guard troops who were stationed at the school on the orders of the governor alongside an angry white mob numbering about 400 caused pandemonium. The black students were verbally assaulted and physically prevented from entering the school.
Davis told The Associated Press that she was a student at the University of Arkansas during that period. “I didn’t think anybody was really going to hurt her because, you know, we’ve had racial incidents in Little Rock over the years,” Davis said about her sister. “People would say things that were mean, but they never really hurt anybody.”
Davis also said that she and her deceased sister reflected on that experience as the years went by. “I think one time somebody put some ink on her skirt or something when she was coming through the hallway. And, of course, there was always name-calling,” she recalled. “But she never really had any physical confrontations with any of the students up there.”
Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, Governor Faubus in September 1958 managed to order the closure of Little Rock high schools in an attempt to bar integration. Mothershed Wair ended up completing the rest of her high school classes outside Arkansas.
She eventually graduated from Central High School after her academic credits were transferred to Little Rock, The Associated Press reported. “She was always a fighter,” Davis said about her sister.
“She’s been sick her entire life. She was born with a congenital heart defect and was told at an early age that she would never get out of her teens. So as she approached her 16th birthday, I remember Mother talking about how afraid she was because she thought she was going to die. But she did what she wanted to do. She enjoyed life.”
Mothershed Wair furthered her education at Southern Illinois University Carbondale where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in home economics education. She then enrolled at the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and graduated with a master’s degree in guidance and counseling.
“Thelma dedicated 28 years to the East St. Louis school system, teaching Home Economics for a decade before serving as an elementary career counselor for 18 years. Her influence on students, both in and out of the classroom, left an indelible mark on the community, and she retired in 1994 with a legacy of transforming lives through education,” the National Park Service said in a statement.
Mothershed Wair and her deceased husband Fred Wair married in 1965, and they share a son. For their courage, the Little Rock Nine were honored with a Congressional Gold Medal by President Bill Clinton in 1999.
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