It Wasn't Little Rock, 2005

"'It Wasn’t Little Rock' was the response that black students in Arlington, Virginia often gave when asked about their experiences in the newly racially desegregated public schools of the 1960s. It was short-hand for we might have problems but we are not being subjected to the unspeakable hatred that was showered on black students when they integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. White students spat on, beat up, yelled insults, destroyed black student lockers, threw flaming paper wads at them in the bathrooms, and even threw lighted sticks of dynamite at and sprayed acid in the eyes of a female black student. To Arlington students, Central High in Little Rock provided the standard for what they might face when integrating their county’s formerly all white schools."--description of the hardcover edition from the artist's website