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most of those newly-purchased blades were in the pockets of blacks.
The FBI checked on Faubus' claims. In 100 stores, the sale of guns and
knives was actually down.
But there were weapons being brandished openly in the streets.
They belonged to the National Guard troops the governor had called in
to "defend" the citizens of his fair state against the assaults of the
supposedly well-armed enemy. When nine black children showed up
outside Central High ready to enroll on the first day of school, those
Guardsmen raised their rifles and turned the kids away. Again, the
FBI checked for signs of the budding black insurrection Faubus kept
implying was about to begin...clues to the existence of the horde who
threatening to slit the throats of innumerable innocent whites. This
time, the authorities in Washington issued a 500-page report. They
couldn't find a shred of evidence to prove Faubus right.
The Federal gumshoes should have checked the home of Orval
Faubus' close friend Jimmy "The Flash" Karam. Karam was Arkansas'
State Athletic Commissioner, a man who could whip together a squad
of oversized brutes on a minute's notice. One day in mid-September,
Faubus slipped away to a Southern Governor's Conference in Sea
Island, Georgia, leaving The Flash to carry out a delicate mission.
Early in the pre-dawn hours outside of Central High, Karam
positioned a squad of thugs recruited from local sports teams. When
the first class bell rang at 8:45 A.M., four African-American reporters
showed up to cover the black students' attempts to approach their
school. One of the Karam's heavies let out a cry: "Here come the
niggers." The black journalists beat a hasty retreat, but not hasty
enough. Twenty of the whites planted by "The Flash" cornered the
reporters and started punching--hard. As the police moved in, Karam
roared, "The niggers started it!" Radio newscasts reported the melee,
and soon, the dregs of white Little Rock, spoiling to defend Caucasian
honor, began to pour in. Hundreds of them. When they couldn't find
enough blacks to beat, they turned on northerners. They pounded the
bejesus out of three reporters from Life Magazine. The violence that
Orval Faubus had predicted for Little Rock had arrived.
ong. Little Rock's stores, he said, were running out of knives. And
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