Central High, Louisville
Black boys and white boys didn’t get along
those fraught first days of forced integration.
There were fights on the hour every hour
when halls were crammed and pressure-loaded,
bumping into one another led to standing toe-to-toe,
chests out, taunts exchanged, fighter’s pose,
spittle on a cheek, forbidden name, fist thrown,
the surging crowd rolling in close
to urge the boy of shared complexion on.
The fights, spirited, if not technically sound,
would only end when the principal
or basketball coach stepped in
and half-marched, half-hauled the boys
off to the office and on to detention.
The white boys by and large held their own,
the black boys bowed to no one,
the chants telling each boy to kill the other,
still ring in our ears all these years later.
6 thoughts on "Central High, Louisville"
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Wow. Bill, this is an honest write that pulls us close to the tension building and boiling over during a time many folks like to pretend never existed.
This: “spittle on a cheek, forbidden name, fist thrown,
the surging crowd rolling in close”
Powerful! Thank you for writing this and for sharing it.
Powerful indeed. Heartbreaking.
Powerful ending. Bill, you always tell it like it is.
You capture the tension well. I did not experience such overt in the mid-1960s when my suburban high school began voluntary desegregation that enabled mostly Black students from Boston to be bused in.
Powerful writing, Bill. It succeeds in the way your writing always hits hard for me–it looks at the hard thing without flinching–and it echoes out.
Deeply affecting and honest, Bill. No avoidance of the issue; faced squarely. Relevant then and now: “the chants telling each boy to kill the other,/still ring in our ears all these years later.”