A group of these students had been met with
by some Ministers, who were a block down, on Park Street, from Central
and they wanted to pray with us-
Do you remember who any of those Minsters were?
No, I just remember seeing
my Minster was not there.
And who was your Minister?
Marine Well Williams
He was at Eleventh Street
Arch Street Baptist Church, and I
thought he would have been there but he wasn't.
Because he was a member of the, what?
Ministerial Ministers' Alliance? [Ministerial Alliance.]
Yes, he was a member of that alliance, and so I thought
when they said they would be there to walk to school with us
that he would be there! But he didn't show up.
They felt that
if you were in a mob and you saw your Minister, your Pastor there
that you would be less likely to want to do something
violent, or crazy, or against the Scriptures because, you know,
that would have a calming affect.
Their presence would have a calming affect.
The fact that they would know these people, they would know these mob members
they could keep them calm.
Well, the way it happened
these mob people really were from out of town
In some way it was like the Govenor had said
they didn't recognize any of their members there, they didn't know anybody
and because they were with us,
and then the news reporters and everybody behind them
tried to stick cameras and microphones in our faces.
We didn't realize what was actually going on.
You know, I could heard the noise,
the name calling and stuff. But I didn't know that people were getting
knocked down with sticks, and bats, and bricks.
And all that kick them while they were down, I didn't know that until I got home.
My mother was on the front porch cryin' when we pulled up.
And she just grabbed me.
You know, I couldn't get out of her clutches for
maybe three or four minutes. She was just holding on to me,
and I couldn't understand why she was so
upset!
And then we went into the house, turned the television on
and I saw all these people getting beat up on television.
And, you know, it turned out that there was a barrier
of news people between the
black students and the mob.
And the mob was beating up these news people,
trying to get to us, but they never did.
That was what protected us that first day.
Was the news personnel trying to,
you know, to get a story, I guess,
or get pictures. And I didn't, you know, didn't realize it was so dangerous
The crowd was so mean and violent until I got back home.
So then I started thinking, 'Well the Ministers met with us
none of us got hit, we got away safely.'
Didn't even know what was going on until
we were safely home.
I said that must be a sign from God.
So if He's with me it's alright, I can go back tomorrow.
Because nothing can happen to me, you know,
I'm like a Superman, you know.
I can go up there, and if they throw at me, they'll just miss.
