be brave, be kind

Huxley’s advice was pared down to this:

Be Brave
Be Kind

Most of us get away with a limited form of the later (closer to Be Nice).

So it’s wonderful to have a picture of someone being brave. Here’s a photo of Elizabeth Eckford .

If you ever feel yourself becoming conservative and you hear your voice raised and speaking against change, imagine that you are that woman following Eckford and to the right. Her face is a kind of portable Hell. And probably eternal in some way we can’t understand.

Here’s a Wikipedia link about the Little Rock Nine and a brief description of what must have been a very long day:

On Monday, September 23, the nine black students, often called “The Little Rock Nine” set off for Central High. Meanwhile, the mob outside the school beat several black reporters there to cover the event. The reporters were saved when word came that the black students had entered the school. The mob went crazy. Mothers yelled to their children, “Come out! Don’t stay in there with those niggers!” [8] Inside the school, the black students became the brunts of various jokes. White students spat on them, tripped them, and yelled insults. More serious problems were to come. By 11:30, the city police surrounding the school felt that they could no longer control the mob. The students had to leave the school through a rear entrance.

Asked to describe the situation in Little Rock that night, the editor of the Arkansas Gazette stated, “I’ll give it to you in one sentence. The police have been routed, the mob is in the streets and we’re close to a reign of terror.”

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