Story Of Their Lives

Lucille Newson lost sleep worrying about her husband out there on the road in dangerous Mississippi. "I always worried," she says. "I tried not to let him know it. Being raised down South, I knew how the people were at that time."

In 1957, Newson took a job with the Baltimore Afro-American, thanking Wilson for the opportunity at the Tri-State Defender as he moved up in the world of Negro newspapering.

It wasn't long before both men were together again, on the road to Little Rock.

Standing His Ground

Like Newson and Wilson, many of the same reporters who covered the Till trial descended upon the Arkansas capital, where President Eisenhower had sent in federal troops to stop rioting over the integration of Central High School.

"It was like barnstorming," co-author Klibanoff says of the black journalists working and traveling. "It's the Negro Leagues all over again."

"We were at the bottom of the totem pole out there," recalls Newson. "But white reporters were also in danger, particularly anyone with a camera. And particularly those from non-Southern states."

Many of the other reporters imagined that with federal troop presence -- bayoneted rifles at the ready -- that the Little Rock mob would back off.

"The worst day for us," remembers Newson, "was the day the kids were supposed to go in the school. We got attacked by the mob. They were gonna kill us. When somebody said, 'The kids are going in the school!' the mob turned fierce."

Get 'em!!!

They kept hearing those words.

Get 'em!!!

Newson and others took off, heels slapping against the concrete, skinny neckties flying over their shoulders.