As Dorothy Counts walked toward Harry Harding High School on this day in 1957, her grandmother's handmade checkered dress with its white bow became spotted with spit. The 15-year-old kept her head high, remembering her father's words from moments before: "You are inferior to no one." Behind her, a mob of several hundred students jeered, with many shouting racial slurs and throwing rocks at her, urged on by adults from the local White Citizens Council.
Beside her walked Dr. Edwin Tompkins, a family friend and professor who had offered to escort her when police barricades prevented her father from parking closer. This powerful photograph by Don Sturkey -- capturing a young Black girl's dignity amid a storm of racism -- would win the World Press Photo of the Year and shake the conscience of the world. Writer James Baldwin, who saw the image while living in Paris, wrote: "It made me furious and filled me with both hatred and pity and it made me ashamed."
Harassment continued unabated throughout the school day, with no efforts from the teachers or principal to rein in the students' constant abuse. When she left school for the day, bedlam broke out once again. Dorothy and her escort, Dr. R.A. Hawkins, were surrounded and showered with water and sticks as they walked to the car where Dorothy's father was waiting to pick her up. The police finally intervened and cleared away the crowd after the mob attempted to rock the car to prevent Dorothy and Dr. Hawkins from getting in.
Dorothy was one of four Black students chosen to integrate Charlotte's all-White schools that day, three years after Brown v. Board of Education. Her father, Rev. Herman Counts Sr., a philosophy professor at Johnson C. Smith University, had been approached by civil rights leader Kelly Alexander Sr. about applying to enroll his children in all-White schools.
After her harrowing first day, Dorothy fell ill with fever and stayed home from school for two days. When she made the courageous decision to return on Monday, students and teachers were shocked. The harassment matched the cruelty from her first day -- teachers ignored her, students formed walls around her that parted at the last second when she was walking, and on Tuesday, boys circled her at lunch and spit in her food. On Wednesday, a blackboard eraser was thrown at her head, and when she went to meet her brother for lunch, she found a crowd surrounding the family car with its back windows shattered. "This was the first time she was afraid, because now her family was being attacked."
After just four days, her parents made the agonizing decision to withdraw her, stating: "As long as we felt she could be protected from bodily injury and insults within the school's walls and upon the school premises, we were willing to grant her desire to study at Harding." She finished that year at an integrated school in Pennsylvania, living with relatives, before eventually returning to North Carolina and graduating from Johnson C. Smith University.
Rather than let bitterness consume her, Dorothy Counts-Scoggins transformed her trauma into a lifetime of service. After college, she moved to New York to work with abused and neglected children, then returned to Charlotte to do non-profit work with children from low-income families. In 2006, something extraordinary happened: she received an email from Woody Cooper, one of the boys from that hostile crowd. When they met for lunch and he asked for forgiveness, she told him: "I forgave you a long time ago, this is opportunity to do something for our children and grandchildren." They became close friends, speaking together about reconciliation and the power of forgiveness.
When Harding High School -- now Irwin Academic Center -- invited her back in 2019, students lined the same path where she had once walked through hatred, this time holding signs declaring their love and admiration. At the dedication of a memorial bench in her honor, Counts-Scoggins reflected: "I said after I left here at 15 that no matter what I did, I would make sure that what happened to me would not happen to another child."
For a powerful, photo-filled book for young readers by acclaimed author Toni Morrison about the history of school desegregation, we highly recommend “Remember: The Journey to School Integration," for ages 9 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/remember
For books about another courageous Mighty Girl who led the way for school desegregation, Ruby Bridges, we recommend the picture book "The Story of Ruby Bridges" for ages 4 to 8 (https://www.amightygirl.com/the-story-of-ruby-bridges), the early chapter book "Ruby Bridges Goes to School" for ages 5 to 8 (https://www.amightygirl.com/ruby-bridges-goes-to-school), and her memoir "Through My Eyes" for ages 8 to 12 (https://www.amightygirl.com/through-my-eyes)
For a powerful memoir by member of the Little Rock Nine, Melba Pattillo Beals, for ages 12 and up, we highly recommend "March Forward, Girl” at https://www.amightygirl.com/march-forward-girl
For a compelling fictional account of the tumultuous school integration of 1950s Little Rock for readers 10 to 13, check out "Lions of Little Rock" at https://www.amightygirl.com/the-lions-of-little-rock
For more books for children and teens about courageous girls and women of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, visit our our blog post on "50 Inspiring Books on Girls & Women of the Civil Rights Movement" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=11177
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