The Daily Stoic - Little Rock Nine Member Ernest Green on Creating an Atmosphere of Change

Episode Date: September 4, 2021

On today’s podcast Ryan talks to Ernest Green about his experience as one of the first African-American students to integrate at Little Rock Central High School in 1957, why we should strive to disprove backwards thinking, how we must change as a country, and more.Ernest Green is one of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African-American students who, in 1957, were the first black students ever to attend classes at Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Green was the first African-American to graduate from the school in 1958. In 1999, he and the other members of the Little Rock Nine were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President Bill Clinton.AppSumo is the best way to automate all of the busywork that comes with running a business, so you can boost your productivity, scale beyond your skillset, and focus on what matters most to you. AppSumo is the leading digital marketplace for entrepreneurs. Now with awesome tools for authors too. Just go to https://social.appsumo.com/ryan-holiday PLUS: Use code ryanholiday at checkout for $20 free credits (limit first 500, new accounts).Ladder makes the process of getting life insurance quick and easy. To apply, you only need a phone or laptop and a few minutes of time. Ladder’s algorithms work quickly and you’ll find out almost immediately if you’re approved. Go to ladderlife.com /stoic to see if you’re instantly approved today.DECKED truck bed tool boxes and cargo van storage systems revolutionize organization with a heavy-duty in-vehicle storage system featuring slide out toolboxes. DECKED makes organizing, accessing, protecting, and securing everything you need so much easier. Get your DECKED Drawer System at Decked.com/STOIC and get free shipping.LinkedIn Jobs is the best platform for finding the right candidate to join your business this fall. It’s the largest marketplace for job seekers in the world, and it has great search features so that you can find candidates with any hard or soft skills that you need. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit linkedin.com/STOIC to post a job for free. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers, we explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal and most importantly to prepare for what the week

ahead may bring. Hi I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stoke Podcast. Several months ago, I got this delightful email from a woman named Mackenzie Greene. She said, hi, Ryan, I wanted to thank you. I took your stoicism 101 course

and I even got to ask you a question. Prior to getting into stoicism, I thought it was just something for white dudes in tech. This is what she's saying. She said she listened to various interviews we had with women, where we talked about women's role in the Old West, for instance. Then we talked about parallels between Epicictetus and Frederick Douglass.

And she said, I started to see the stoicism of Jackie Robinson, Harriet Tubman, Oprah and others. And then she said, and I saw it in my father, a member of the Little Rock 9. And I started to see the stoic principles in practice besides white dudes in Silicon Valley. I was so grateful to get this email because stoicism is not practice besides white dudes in Silicon Valley. I was so grateful to get this email because Stoicism is not just for white dudes in tech, as you know, and as I deeply believe. But I was just so surprised and excited to get an email from the daughter of someone who

was in the Little Rock 9, the Little Rock 9 being the nine young black men and women who integrated Little Rock Central High School in the mid to late 1950s as part of the response to the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education, the first, one of the first major integrations of American education, breaking down the longstanding and evil reign of Jim Crow segregation. We talked McKenzie and I and I said, hey, would your father ever like to come on the podcast?

And she said, I should think about it that when she was traveling this summer, she might connect and talk to him. Anyways, this all happened in May. And here we are now in August recording. And I got on the line with the one and only Ernest Green, a real American hero who in 1957 was one of the first black students to ever attend classes in Arkansas. And more than just, he's actually, as we talk about, the oldest of the students, he's

a senior, most of them are much younger. He's also an Eagle Scout of them are much younger. He's also an eagle scout as we talk about. And then he goes on afterwards to attend Michigan State University and then serve in the Carter Administration, work at Lehman Brothers, and has a whole interesting inspiring career. But is best known for this moment of courage and bravery in 1957, where he challenges not only segregation, but faces bayonets and guns as the governor of Arkansas sends out the National Guard to attempt to stop them. So it's a fascinating story and it's funny, you know, I was just reading this biography of Ralph Ellison for the book,

series that I'm working on now. And it's really funny, there's a passage here, I thought I'd read it to you. This is on page 421, where Ellison is in a discussion with Hannah Arendt, the sort of scholar on the banality of evil, a well-known philosopher on Nazism and the horrible injustices of the 20th century. She actually talks about how she was disturbed, even mortified, that families were sending their kids to these schools, essentially, potentially sacrificing them to advance this. A cause that she agreed with, but she was worried about their safety. And she's talking to Ellison about this.

I thought this was really great. Strenuously objecting to a rent, Ralph pointed out that behind the parents' actions, although some students had volunteered for the tasks, and specifically Ernest Green volunteered. So I think that's another inspiring note to his favor. He says, this was neither negligence nor pushiness, but a nobility of ideals, but a nobility of ideals involving self-confidence, self-consciousness, self-mastery,

insight, and compassion. The parents, he said, recognized the overtones of a right of initiation in their children suffering, and they expected a son to face the terror and contain his fear of an anger precisely because he is a Negro American. And then in the discussion, Arent concedes privately to Ralph that you are entirely right, it is precisely this ideal of sacrifice that I didn't understand. I would say that there's not a better description of stoicism than that series of phrases there,

self-confidence, self-consciousness, self-mastery, insight and compassion. Facing, tear and containing your fear and anger precisely because of who you are. I love that so much, so I'm very excited to bring you this interview with Ernest Green, civil rights activist, American hero, I would say, and all around, wonderful person, father and grandfather as we talk about.

I hope you enjoy this interview. And I think on that note, a final spot to end is a reminder that my new book Courage is Calling is available for pre-order now. You can sign up at dailystoke.com slash pre-order. I actually talk quite a bit about the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King is a hero of the book. Ernest Green talks about in the interview here that Martin Luther King actually attended his high school graduation and they got to know each other over the years. I talk about Martin Luther King, I talk about John Lewis, I talk about Ralph Abernathy and a number of other civil rights heroes because there is no real activism or justice without courage.

And we talk about a whole, I talked about a whole number of other courageous people, men and women like Ernest Green, who stood up or sat down, who did the right thing, despite an enormous amount of pressure and fear and danger to the contrary. And those are precisely the people that we need to study, that we need to emulate more in our own life, personally, professionally, politically.

And anyways, I hope you check out the new book. It's out September 28th, and you can get a whole bunch of awesome pre-order bonuses if you sign up at dailystowk.com slash pre-order. Pick up a copy. Anywhere books are sold. You send in an email for the bonuses, and you can check out the book, and I hope you like it. can check out the book and I hope you like it. So walk me through, I think some people are familiar with the big day as they've seen it on television

so many times or heard about it so many times, but walk me through the run up to finding yourself at this historical moment? Well, I think you have to walk back to the Supreme Court decision of Brown versus the Board outlawed segregation in public schools. And as I said sometimes it seemed like a non-event, not any event, that Little Rock school board was attempting to comply with the brown decision that the Supreme Court handed down. Sure. And I'm like in a 15, 16 year old that I didn't pay a lot of attention to it. I didn't, you know, I'm historic moments and not something you go outside your comfort zone to be involved in.

But the spring of 1957, the Little Rock School Board was attempting to comply with the Supreme Court decision, at least that's what they said. And they asked for students who lived in the school district who were interested in volunteering to sign a sheet of paper. And I complied with that and signed the sheet of paper and didn't pay him any attention to it. And as a summer of 57 rolled along, I had a summer job. I was the houseman at a country club in Little Rock. And, you know, I got a hamburger and a soft drink and made whatever the minimum wage was at that time and I was a happy camper. Well, as the summer developed, it turned out that the governor of Arkansas said he was going to call out the national god to keep us from going to Central High School. And so you created this

constitutional conflict. Again, I'm like any other teenager, and then check out as the most important thing for my summer. But it also meant that I had to pay a lot more attention to this event because I was the only one in the 12th grade that's to paper. And it was the only one that at the end of the day, the Little Rock School Board was the only one that at the end of the day, the Little Rock School Board decided to invite us to become the Little Rock Nine. My interest did get heightened, though, when all of this activity around are going to central high school developed, in fact, my shorthand said to me that if all this attention is being paid to this going to the school, this has got to be some sort of big deal. And the summer 57, the governor who was over the flawless announced that he was going to the night before we were to go to Central, that he was going to use the National God to bar us from entrance. And I thought from that point on, this must be something of importance. It was important,

I guess, if I look at two events that sort of centered me, one was the Montgomery bus boycott, in which involved Dr. King and Rosa of of of Emmett Till I'm drawing Emmett Till. Yeah. Emmett Till Emmett Till's murder was in the spring of 57. The Montgomery bus four caught begin that winter. that went there. And you spent some time, you know, looking at events around civil rights. I didn't see myself as one of the shock troopers, but I thought that if this was going to change the way black people were perceived, the way that they had an opportunity to interact, elimination of Jim Crow, all of these things leading up to a change that I thought was great for me.

I believe that non-events were something that we shouldn't pay attention to. And then thirdly, I saw all of this as helping to improve the atmosphere around a little rock for myself. So the other students were all much younger than you. So you, you in effect volunteered, as opposed to your parents sort of signing you up for it. So you must have had some, your parents were activists as well, right?

My my mother was a school teacher. My aunt was a teacher. My grandfather was a letter of post-album carrier. And he had tried at some point to vote in the Democratic primary. And he was pushed away with the use of a gun, a rifle. My mother was also involved in a court case for equal pay between black and white teachers. And the teacher who brought the suit, the moment she brought the suit, she was fired from a little rock school, school district. And my mother and a number of other teachers who money together to provide income for her

during the course of the idea as she was the plaintiff. Anyway, the lawyer that handled that case for the black schoolteaches was very good Marshall. So yeah, we were activists without spending a lot of time knowing that this was going to be the beginning of a revolution. And you were also an Eagle Scout, right? I was an Eagle Scout, right? I was an Eagle Scout. I had become an Eagle Scout, that's spring. So before I was at Central High School,

I said I always used my merit badges to figure out what I wanted to do next and that helped me, that helped me get through the idea. It must have been perplexing, right? You come from a family of people who are contributing to the community. You're an Eagle Scout. You have a summer job. You are a good student. you are a good student, how did it feel as a kid to have this sort of intensity of hatred and disagreement and objection to a person who is effectively doing everything right? That must have been strange to wrap your head around at such a young age. Yeah, well, you know, that's one of the inconsistencies of segregation and Jim Crow at that period of time that the people that I knew, I knew that we had a doctor, we had a pharmacist, had a lawyer, Daisy Bates, who was a publisher

of the weekly newspaper. All these people were making a contribution, and yet if you listen to the segregationists, they would say that the black community doesn't contribute anything, that they are obviously not making any impact, positive impact, and that we've got to figure a way to keep them segregated and keep them away from the majority of the community.

So the day comes and you're there for your first day of school. I imagine this is the scariest moment of your life? Well, to have somebody with band-heads and rifles pointed that they keep in me away. They're letting these other students go to class. But you also knew that being a black person at that point in time, that if they were working that hard to keep you out, it had to be something going on that was worth pursuing. And that this represented to me an opportunity to change the atmosphere,

change the the matrix of how we were considered worthless and that it made me feel that I had, I should be there. I mean, it was my opportunity to say that you got the wrong person. I'm obviously important and I wanna be inside that school. I love that.

That's such an interesting way of thinking about it. Yeah, the reason they were trying to keep you out is that it was very, very valuable and they were trying to keep it for themselves, even though it was dressed up in racism and hatred, it was really about self interest. And you came to the conclusion that you were making a real contribution to the community, much more so than they were willing to admit. And that segregation and Jim Crow and all of the rationale that they threw up to keep you out didn't make sense. I should be there and I'm going to stay there at that

front gate until you let me in. Yeah, I interviewed George traveling a few years ago. He's one of the the pioneering basketball coaches. He was there on the steps of the the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Monument when when King gave the, I have a dream speech, and actually, Martin Luther King gave him the speech as he walked down the stairs. And George was telling me that his grandmother would, every time she saw him, she would say,

George, why did the slave owners keep their money in books? Why did they hide their money in the books on the plantation? And he said, I don't know. And she said, because she thought the slaves would never look there. And what he took from that was, go ahead. Sorry, he was saying that they knew books were valuable, but we're trying to deceive him from thinking

they were valuable, and that's precisely why he has spent so much of his life reading. The things, precisely the things that they're trying to keep away from you are the things you deserve and should be seeking out. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident

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listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Well, I appreciate that because I was at the march as well, and had an opportunity. I appreciate that because I was at the march as well and had an opportunity to hear Dr. King speak well and I don't know whether you aware that he came to my graduation, my high school graduation. I didn't know that.

He was giving a speech in time bluff Arkansas, which is maybe 20, 30 miles from Little Rock. And he decided that he wanted to witness my graduation. He came up, sat with the woman who I mentioned, Daisy Bates and my family. And so I always said that I'm one of the few people in the world that had Dr. Martin Luther King at the high school graduation. But over the years, I had an opportunity to see him.

And as I said, I was at the march for jobs and freedom that Dr. King was there. A Philip Randolph was there. Molland Brando was there. And it was an event to be. I bet. I'm, I'm. So, so when you walk into that school for the first time,

what, once you sort of get past the barriers and once you're inside, what was it like to be showing up to your senior year of high school, which is difficult and strange and weird, even under normal circumstances, how did you navigate that year and get your education while so many people were probably rooting for and trying to make you fail. So have you failed? Well, I think that because they worked hard at trying to make me fail, made me also stronger in terms of trying to succeed. I paid a lot of attention to the fact that I needed to study.

In fact, I had a couple of tutors that were working with me. I had a course in physics that was really very difficult for me. But the reason I got through it is I had my tutor was a physics professor from the University of Arkansas Medical School. He was white and every Saturday for the entire school year, he and I had tutoring sessions that helped me get through that. So there were people who were trying to see that I could succeed. But most of the students were really a Fred been led by their families or their community that somehow they should feel they shouldn't help us. Sure.

They shouldn't reach out. And I think that it's a sad state when I look back at what could have happened that didn't happen. But I was committed that I was going to go through that year. I was going to succeed and that it was going to be a year in which I would pass my courses and hopefully get on to college. It must have been strange. As you said, some people were rooting for you, some people were rooting against you. At first, the governor sends the National Guard

to keep you out, and then Eisenhower sends in the airborne to let you in. It must have been strange that you're seeing the absolute worst and the best of people at the same time. Well, it was. And the fact that President Eisenhower sent in the 101st Airborne, which I, you know, elite troops to help us get into school was another indication that this was the big deal. I needed to make certain that I succeed at it and that there were people around the country who cared, not just those in Little

Rock, Arkansas who wanted to see me fail. Is it hard for you to, how do you go through the world knowing that some of the people are really good and some of the people are really bad or that some of the people are really bad, or that some people have, you know, Martin Luther King talked about how we all have a North and a South in our soul, and that there's a battle, which side are you gonna be on? How do you navigate seeing up close

the sort of the two paths that individuals could take? That seems like it would be hard to unsee. Once you've been screamed at by horrible racists, once people have thrown rocks at you, once people have threatened your family, how do you unsee that? Well, you knew growing up in Little Rock that this was an attitude that a number of people had. And that I was taught by my family and by my friends and my community that I have value.

I was worth something. I was I was important to me. And that, as you mentioned, the coach who said that they hid their money in books because they didn't feel that one black people could read to that they were going to look in a book. And I think that at each point, I had an opportunity, along with my friends, to disprove that they had the wrong view about who I was and what I could do.

And in that way, I could always read. And they would know that I had an idea where the money was. So, I think particularly growing up, I felt this way. This feels like it was all a very long time ago, but I was just reading to my son, there's a children's book, my son's for, and Ruby Bridges wrote a children's book. And I'm reading the back of it, and she's only 66 years old. And you're 79, 80? It wasn't that long ago that this happened. All right. Yeah, no, this was, this was recent. In fact, we were a year before Ruby, when she went to school in New Orleans. That little rock was the 57, I think. She was 58, 59, when she went to school in New Orleans. But no, this is less than a hundred years. And we're still fighting ideas that

culminate in racist views about what people can and can't do. And that's why I think it's important for you to read to your son that we're ready to take on these challenges. We're ready to disprove backwards thinking that people have about other people and that we're ready to show the world and that this is a change atmosphere. This is a place that we were able to show that we can grow. We as a country have to grow. We're going to the world in which people, as Dr. King said, hopefully judged by the content

of that character, not who they are. So race, justice, an opportunity to show that we all can make a contribution is where we are at this moment. As I was thinking about all this, I reached out to my family because my grandmother and her side of the family is all from Barraville, Arkansas. So I asked, I said, did my grandmother was the high school she went to segregated? I said, you know, did my grandmother was the high school she went to segregated? And they said, actually, I guess the senior year of her high school, the Barrowville High School was destroyed by a tornado. And so she went to Little Rock High School. They sent her to Little Rock High School. I think this is 45-46. The last year of her high school,

she went to the same high school that you did. And it was interesting to me to thank one, 46, the last year of her high school she went to the same high school that you did. And it was interesting to me to think, one, again, this is not that long ago. I spent a lot of time with this woman when I was growing up, that my own grandmother pre went to high school 10 years before you did, and it was segregated. But the thing that struck me about it was, it was never once talked about. Like, you know, we talked about privilege, or we talked about advantages, it never once came up that my grandmother got to go to a high school that kept out a significant percentage

of the population who still had to pay taxes, who still had an equal right to go there. It's interesting to me, we talked about sort of how advantages get passed down. Like it's never been thought about in my family that we, you know, I think people go, oh, we're not racist, but we still don't think about how that racist system benefited us at the expense of another group. And I will add that my dad went to Europe and fought in World War I.

Wow. Now he went, he went to France to help. Right. French. And when he came back, little like even both. French. And when he came back, little I can vote. And it's a it's a it's a series of positions that when you stand on your head, it doesn't make sense. They can't justify it. They they they can't logically explain it. It doesn't doesn't translate. And that's why I think as soon as we can get

as many of these old vestiges of Jim Crow and segregation, whether they statues or behavior or availability of opportunity, all of it doesn't, we have an opportunity, I'd generation, your generation, your children to correct that and make certain that we don't have to live in the past like we've done in the before. Yeah, and you mentioned Emmett Till earlier. I was I was reading an article, right Thompson wrote an article in the Atlantic about Emmett Till and the barn where he was killed. And the most stunning part of that piece that really that really brings home how recent some of this was is that the woman that Emmett Till

supposedly whistle that, although she it sounds like she actually made it up. things home, how recent some of this was, is that the woman that Emmett Till supposedly whistled that, although it sounds like she actually made it up. But the woman at the center of all of that is still alive. Yeah, absolutely. And if you ask her what happened, she'll probably tell you she doesn't remember now so that we are a nation that I think our strength is our diversity and yet we fight hard not to recognize that. So that seems to me what we need to do, especially with generation of your kids,

is make sure that all these blind alleys that we've been going up and down, that we get away from it and get on with Recognizing who we are Why we can't be a better country than we are and what our strengths are I mean it's it is It is mind-boggling We still fight there. We're still fighting the Civil War and that we can't give it up for a better future that's right in front of us.

I'm really glad you brought that up because the irony of, and maybe sometimes it's easier to see it when you look at another country, right? The irony of Nazi Germany is that the second world war is ultimately won in large part through the work of Jewish scientists who are driven out of Germany by the Nazis who come to America in Britain and do all sorts of important work for the Allied cause. And I think that's one part of segregation and racism and Jim Crow that we don't think about. It's not just that it was morally wrong. It was also economically stupid

in a profound way because I think about the illustrious career that you've gone on to have and the work that many of the, the other members of the Little Rock Nine have gone on to do. It just being ordinary parents, raising good families, having good jobs, and to think that systematically, the laws of this country prevented that from happening. If you had been born one year earlier or one year later actually, you might not have been able to have the career that you've had or made the make the contributions that you've made

because we would have been shooting ourselves in the foot by holding you and people like you down. That diversity is a strength. And yet, as you said, we seem to fight it at every step of the way. Yeah, well, I think that in a world that seems to become coming more diverse, that if we're gonna recognize our strengths as a country, we've got to recognize our assets.

And it seems to me that the fact that we are not, we are a multicultural country with people from all over the world. We need to get on with proving why that's important and not see it as a hindrance. So you experienced this. You saw sort of raw, unadulterated, unadulterated violent racism up front, right? You saw the crowd screaming that you saw, like literal troops having to hold it back. That doesn't just disappear, right?

It seems very distant now, but that didn't just disappear. Where does that, where does that energy go, you think? All these people were... No, and it's probably... Go ahead. Where does the energy go? Well, that's a great question.

It ought to go towards an improvement of opportunity for everybody in this country. And I think the sooner we figure that out, hopefully leadership is going to spend some time trying to work on that. I think the President administration, obviously, a very important accomplishment to have a vice president of the country that is not a white male. Sure. That, in fact, that probably does great opportunity for young women to see Vice President Harris, then it does

to see her as a person of color. I think that you're interviewing. You're recognizing that we are different place. That when you talk to your ask him, what is he see, you know, the opportunities in America? He would probably tell you he sees Martians, which wouldn't be bad because we spend all this time trying to get to Mars and if anybody's up there, we're going to be shocked out about our pants. But we are at a point, we have an opportunity to look at the future as something different than our history. And I feel great about that. I see it in my family. I see it with my children who had all adults and grown up and families that they have.

Can America be different for the future than what we've seen it become in the past. And I'm an optimist. I believe that that's possible. And that's why I wanted to go to that school. And that's why I believe, you know, changes, changes good. Well, and that was sort of my question. I think, I think maybe we've told ourselves a story that as soon as the schools were desegregated

or as soon as, you know, the Voting Rights Act was passed, that this all went away. And I guess what I'm saying is you saw these people up close, you met their children or maybe you went to class with them. They didn't magically get transformed just because Ernest Green sat next to them in history class or physics class. So how have you seen that evolution in people? Like, I guess what I'm saying is it feels like we're having this reckoning now in the United States because we realized that just because we made a few changes, doesn't mean that everyone's soul was transformed, that we suddenly grew out of this many century long tradition

of thinking about things the wrong way. But you're answering the question, because it's more than just reckoning and sitting next to me in a physics class. It's a long history. But the but is that it can change. There are enough people who are willing to spend time trying to make it permanent, not just wind addressing. Sure. And if anybody thinks that simply because we did one act or we made one change here or

that we had a black president or a black vice president. All of that, it's not that it doesn't mean anything. It's just that we have been so long at trying to prove that people don't have qualities of change that we don't know when change comes. And I'm a witness that change is possible, but it is awfully difficult. It is awfully difficult. And that what we got to do is get people committed

to stay with it and not give up because we got some knuckleheads who want to resist change. I mean, I don't know where they're going to go. You know, they go to Iceland or someplace. They go to Mars, I guess. But they've got to be willing to accept the fact that we're all human beings.

And we've got something to contribute to the plus side of this country. Well, I love that you said that you're an optimist because I think people said that they use that as an excuse, but it's not enough to be, you weren't just, hey, I think the future's going to be better or I think things will work out. Your optimism was also connected with the actions that you took. Right? So I think people sometimes think progress just happens. Of course it does, but progress happens because individuals and groups come together and make progress together. And they continue to demand change.

And they continue to demand change. I think it's, as I said, my dad fought in World War I. And yet, he was working on this abstract idea of equality. And when he came home, there were a whole ton of people who were resisting, he considered himself equal to me. Who does he think he is? Right. And I'm here to say that you and I and your kids

and mine and my family and other members of the nine big world out there but we're not going to give in to the knuckleheads that say change can occur and that I've got to live in the past. I'm going to want more. I'm willing to fight for more. And I think we have an opportunity to make the change stick. Well, I'm so glad you brought that up because it is fascinating that you talked about

how we stand on our head. We can't make it work. I just looked up Orville Favis, the governor of Arkansas, who worked so hard to prevent you from going to school. He was in the US Army from 1942 to 46. He was a major in the infantry, participated in D-Day and the Battle of the Vogue. So he goes overseas to fight fascism,

to fight for freedom and democracy, and then comes home and is an active participant in the suppression of those very ideas at home. It's so baffling that I don't know how you make sense of it. that I can't, I don't know how you make sense of it. Well, I agree with you. I don't know how he makes sense with it either. Part of it was that we thought that Little Rock and Arkansas were a bit more progressive

than some other communities in the South. That's why I thought that my first day at school, I would have an opportunity to meet some students who were interested in what I thought of the world and I had an opportunity to figure out what they thought of the world. Mostly what I met the first week were students who were afraid to have any contact with me.

That they were going to be ostracized. They were going to be told by their friends and neighbors to be told by their friends and neighbors that they couldn't have a relationship with me because I was going to turn them around. I don't know what the outcome was supposed to be. But here we are in a new century ideas at your grandmother who went to Central High, same that I did, didn't become the flaming communists of Arkansas, right? Right. She was a person that you still admired. And what I think is that your grandmother

and other people who went to Central when I was there, we need to hear from them that the place didn't fall apart, that Little Rock Central has had a number We need to hear from them that the place didn't fall apart. Little Rock Central has had a number of students who have succeeded done well. It was considered one of the jewels of the Mid-South in terms of the building. And that I wanted to go there because I knew that it was a ticket to a better life. And that's what education has been centuries, so that let's get home with it.

Otherwise, make it... I think it's worth pointing out because again, we can tell ourselves a story about these things retroactively that sort of absolves us of responsibility. I'm talking about everyone but you in this case. But it seems like in retrospect, obviously, the governor of Arkansas was wrong, obvious that segregation was wrong and that this was a sort of a really small minority that had hijacked things. But as I was saying, I just looked him up.

According to Gallup's most admired man and woman poll of 1958, Orville Fabus was one of the 10 most admired Americans at that time. And so I think it's really important that we look at history and remind ourselves that oftentimes the right thing, the proper thing, what in the future will seem like a clear cut case of right and wrong, you know, society can get completely incorrect. And that just how many people were on the wrong side of this issue as it was happening, probably including my own family.

Again, it's the fact that we don't talk about it probably makes me think that we were on the wrong side of it. But I think it's important, you know, as issues happen today that you don't just default to what all your friends and neighbors are thinking because as we see with Jim Crow and segregation, these things that were unfortunately very popular at the time, we can be way off base. Well, and I think recognizing that you can be on the right side of history, but it's probably

takes a lot. And that the likelihood is that Geneva is not going to applaud you. Yes. I think we've relegated Dr. King to God like status now There were many times when his efforts were being Regarded as wrong headed and going in the wrong direction I yeah, I imagine he wasn't given given a standing ovation at your high school graduation well, they didn't they didn't know who he was and Luckily, I think that the little right police force didn't have any idea who Martin Luther King was so that they couldn't point him out, but to his credit, he wanted to see my graduation. And I'm honored that he was there taking part of my graduation. Yeah, he probably risked his life to be there in some sense or another.

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, and in the end, he did give his life, right? It's not like he was so popular that we made him a saint, you know, in his own time. I mean, he was assassinated. That's part of the history and it's important to remember that. And that people who go against the grain are not necessarily the ones that we cheer on. Right. But let's recognize the fact that they make an enormous contribution to make this country

what it is today. So how did you come to talk about all this with your own children. I imagine you wanted them to have a normal life, but you probably also worried about their safety. And how did you talk to them about not just racism and its history in America, but how did you talk to them about activism and being of service and values? How did you talk to them in your own family?

Well, it ranged from my attempting not to bury them in my history, having them to discover it, both on their own, and with some help from me, my Mackenzie probably was telling you that she discovered it on the own, that one day in a history class, the teacher brought out a picture of the nine. She looked and saw that the Terrence Roberts, who was with me, was one of the nine's, and she had a perfect look on her face. And I think that those of us who have been fortunate enough to be part of history to show up in a history book.

You want your kids to appreciate what you've done, and that's where we really were. All of them I've spoken at their classes. I said, Adam is my son who is a history professor. I've been at every level of scholarship that he's been so that I've tried to make myself available to be the outside lecturer and hopefully not to bury them in my history, but to recognize that we've tried to make a contribution to the country. And you went on, you served in the Carter administration, right?

I was Assistant Secretary in the Carter administration for job training, employment and training. I've spent four years there and then went from there to spend time on a Wall Street firm, Lehman Brothers. And now my wife is trying to get me to retire. I'm semi-retired every now and then. I do Alexa like this, but I'm proud of my kids, the work that they are doing and you know we continue to push on. I got a birthday coming up in September. That will be the big A.O. So could you have imagined as a senior at that first day of school at Central High School that this would be the trajectory of your life that you'd serve in a presidential administration that a democratic governor from the South no less? Could you have imagined that? Could you have imagined that?

No, the opportunity to serve with President Carter was great. I've known a number of presidents. Obviously Bill Clinton is someone that have a personal relationship with President Obama, went to his inauguration. So it's a moment that I cherish, but I always thought that if you gave me a shot, that this is the way it would turn out. I love that. And that, I think, again, to go to this self-interested argument,

I think, and I read this once about Anne Frank. You know, you read Anne Frank's diary and you see this precocious, beautiful young girl who's struck down in her prime, this precocious, beautiful young girl who's struck down in her prime, that she's really a stand-in for generation of other talented young people that we would have never heard of. And I think when I think about your story, I think Americans should see both a triumph, but it's also a reminder you're a symbol of all the other talented, ambitious, confident young men and women who could have served in so many different capacities that were wrongly deprived of that opportunity.

And people who remained upside of it, that it's the opportunity that we've closed out to a lot of folks. I'm sure my dad couldn't imagine, you know, things that have happened, but I believe that, things that have happened. But I believe that, you know, the futures could be even brighter than what we've experienced. And there's no reason why we ought to cut off the lights and turn the lock on the door and not look for the future for how we're going to get more talent and get more plus out of it.

Do you have grandchildren? Yes, yes, I have a granddaughter. You must help contribute to your optimism about the future. It does. It makes me believe that my optimism is not misplaced. You can get that. It's fine. As we wrap up, I'm just curious. I mean, yeah, Mr. Mr. I gotta call you back. All right, all right. Thank you. That was a person I'm very proud of, who like me participated in the government, right, Rodney Slater, who's Secretary of Transportation, and grew up working for Bill Clinton.

Wow. is now a big time lawyer in town. But again, a guy who came from humble roots and has been able to take advantage of education and make it work for him. I love that. Well, as we wrap up, as America in the last year and a half has sort of begun to wrestle more publicly with some of these racial issues, something we should have done a long time

ago, of course, how do you how are you thinking about and what advice you have to the next generation of Americans period, Black or White, about how we keep the flame going, how we keep moving forward, where we can and need to make progress. What advice do you have? Well, I think that my story, other stories prove the point that we don't look under all the right places to find talent. And my hope is that we've become a lot more inquisitive about where we search and seek out people to make a contribution to this country. And as I said, when we started this discussion, I'm going to have to miss about the future. But we got to work at it, and we got to believe that we can improve considerably where we're looking for talent and contribution and

people who can make a difference. So I want to continue to look for that difference and I believe we can make it work. How do you think we can do a better job of that? Is it education? Is it, how can people do a better job looking for talent that, as you said, is not being given an equal shot? Well, I think you've got to be willing to look at lots of different corners and underneath cans and not just the usual. Let's not look at everybody who graduated from the Ivy schools.

Let's see if we can't find some other places that people congregate and have, you know, maybe homeless shelters. We aren't looking at the fortallant and all the right places, as the song says. And my hope is that right places as the song says. And my hope is that the last two or three years prove that we've got to be more creative about where we look and how we support them. Yeah, not just looking for them, but also thinking about the ways that our systems and our institutions

are making it harder for people than it need to be and thus preventing them from thriving and succeeding. I would agree with you a lot, Aley. Well, Ernest, this was truly an honor for me. I'm so glad that McKinsey connected us and your story is very inspiring and I'm honored to be able to tell people about it. And I'm glad to see you're doing well that you've written out this insane pandemic and you're still with us. And I hope you're with us for a lot longer.

Well, thank you. And I look forward to getting this book written, that I get my story told. But my family, my wife, my children, my sister, and extended family. I've been the rock of my support. And I believe we can, one, we can do better. Two, we've got to do better.

And three, that better is out there waiting for us to find them and touch them and bring them in. I love that. Well, writing books is one thing I do know a little bit about. So if I can help in any way, you just have Mackenzie reach out and I'm happy to do whatever I can. Well, thank you. And I enjoy our time together and let me know what kind of response we get. I will indeed thank you so much. This was great. I'll let you go and I hope you have a wonderful Monday.

All right thank you and say to you. Pyser. All right goodbye. Thanks so much for listening. If you could leave a review for the podcast we'd really appreciate it. The reviews make a difference and of course every nice review from a nice person helps balance out. The crazy people who get triggered and angry anytime we say something they disagree with. So if you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode. day, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.