Why Terrence Roberts still fights for civil rights, 63 years after the Little Rock Nine

Terrence Roberts is a veteran of the U.S. civil rights movement. But he recalled bristling during a recent conversation when he was asked what he's done for civil rights besides his role as part of the Little Rock Nine.

"I said, 'You know what? I was inducted into the civil rights army on December 3, 1941. That's the day of my birth. And I've been an active soldier since,'" he told Day 6.

In September 1957, he and eight other students enrolled at at Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., a segregated school for white students.

The Little Rock Nine, as they became to be known, spent one year there, where they were treated as pariahs by other students. The U.S. military was called in to protect them from angry mobs.

Roberts spoke with Day 6 host Brent Bambury about the ongoing protests denouncing police violence against black people, and what strides the civil rights movement has made over the decades. Here's part of their conversation.

I first spoke with you three years ago at the 60th anniversary of the Little Rock Nine. And at the ceremony for that event, you stepped in front of the podium and said that you weren't there to celebrate, that your balloons and confetti were still in the closet. What did you mean by that?

Well, at that time, I was thinking it's important for me to alert people to the fact that the celebration was premature. The celebration was in the minds of many that we had conquered the evil of segregation, that somehow what we did in Little Rock was enough to end what had been centuries of accumulated abuse and oppression.

It didn't seem to make sense to me then, and it still doesn't make sense. I'm still waiting for that opportunity to celebrate. And I hope it comes soon, because I'm far along this life continuum.

By my reckoning, I'm in the fourth quarter of life ... and unless we do it soon, I won't be around to see it.

Did you think three years ago, when you were reluctant to celebrate, that the fight for civil rights would break open the way that it has in the last two weeks?

I think what's happening now is because of that very, very significant video recording of one black man being killed by police, and because it was such an apparent murder, that many people are now energized. I'm thinking to myself, why would it take something like that?

And by the way, had it not been video recorded, I don't think we'd be having the same thing going on today. But to me, that suggests that too many of us in this country are blind to the facts.

This stuff has been going on for centuries. "Why haven't we had this surge before?" is my way of looking at it.

When you were attending Central High School as a teenager, you were verbally and physically attacked daily. What made you decide that this was a fight that you were going to continue?

Well, a number of things, not not the least of which was the fact that I knew that people like me had been killed over the centuries for fighting for the same rights.

But if I said no, because I prefer comfort and long life to getting involved in the struggle to change things, it would be tantamount to spitting on the graves of people who'd given the ultimate sacrifice to make this thing happen.

We, as a country of people, are addicted to comfort. We want things to be nice, non-disruptive. We would prefer to have a peaceful society. I think that's often the word used. But when you use peace in that sense, it's not really peace ... because there's a anger bubbling up underneath that gets tamped down.

Yeah, you can use force to keep it tamped down, but it explodes from time to time. And this is another one of those explosions. It's coming up. It's on its surface now. Many more people can see it. I see it all the time.

Terrence, there are black teenagers today watching what's happening in all 50 states. They're seeing these protests, they're seeing the police response, and they're seeing these videos that you mentioned, police violence, replayed over and over again.

These young people are at the centre of what's happening in their world now, just like you were 63 years ago. What's your message to those kids?

Well, my main message is they have to understand that the reality swirling around them is in no way definitive of who they are. And it's only through understanding who you are and having high level self-awareness that you'll be able to contend with the forces that are yet to be seen or known in their lives.

I say that because there are many people who think that the uprisings that we have from time to time — the killing of black people by policemen and so forth — are events that are not usual, they're abnormal, they're somehow outliers.

I want the young people to know: no, this is the norm. This is how things are always being done in this country. This is not different.

And along with this sense of self and understanding the reality, hopefully it from that point on, they will develop a cadre of people who are like-minded around him so they can support each other.

Written by Jonathan Ore. Produced by Laurie Allan.

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