Fifty years ago this week, while the eyes of the world were focused on Central High in Little Rock Arkansas, Jim Pop was trying to focus on the purchase of a 12 acre “ranch”, up a mile dirt road in Conn Valley. Locals giggled about the city slickers who were stupid enough to pay $1,000 per acre for Sheriff Simpson’s place, out past the County Dump, and a mile from the closest people.
Normally, a decision to move one’s family, would dominate a man’s consciousness. But like other Americans that week, his personal life had to take back seat to a national crisis, unfolding on TV.

Ike had just sent the 101st Airborne into Arkansas to protect the lives of nine young Afro-American (called “colored”) children, who were committing the unspeakable crime of trying to enter a local public high school.
Kids today, have no idea what race relations were like in the U.S., just 50 short years ago. In 1896 the Supreme Court had ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson, that a doctrine of “separate but equal” facilities was constitutional. For almost 60 years segregation in schools, hotels, restaurants, trains, you name it--was perfectly legal many states.
To some it was not only legal, it was right and proper. And these weren’t just racist red necks. Many were upstanding citizens people who never bothered to question the status quo.
Jim Pop had more than a casual interest in Little Rock. Three years before, in Brown v. Board of Education his own father had joined 8 other old white males and unanimously overturned Plessy. Three of those justices were from the South. Papa Warren was keenly aware how hard it would be on them—but he patiently brought them around.

It wasn’t just Southern Justice’s families that were affected. Napa County was 99% white.

(In '63 a minister from Napa who went to Selma to march, was told by a Minster from Pennsylvania to go back to Napa, "the Selma of the North." True storey).

One teacher called to Maggie her that some teachers were out to “get” her children. .As kids, we were called “Commies” and “nigger” lovers, by some.

But how minor that was when one tries to imagine the courage of those nine young African-American (then called “colored”) kids who attempted to enter Central High despite Governor Faubus’ efforts.

The mob was so vicious that a then 15 year old Melba Patillo says she overheard a policeman say, “We can’t get them out of the building--we’re going to have to let the mob hang one so the others can get away”.
Would thee or me have had the courage to put our own daughters in that kind of danger?
The Christmas of ‘57 was the first Papa Warren spent here in St. Helena at the “Lazy J”.

He was glad to get away and be surrounded by family.

For the next 12 years, each Christmas, his routine was the same. First, he’d pay a personal call on Angie and she’d give him his Christmas raviolis. Then he’d drop by Pometta’s to pick up his ducks which he’d shot and they’d picked.
Then he’d get lost trying to find the ranch. Finally, he’d arrive.

He’d have a Scotch with the Napa Register writer (who invariably got so sloshed waiting for Papa Warren’s late arrival, that he’d drive off the muddy road and we’d have to tow him out). Then he’d sit patiently for the newspaper pictures (which we, as kids, hated).
Dinner table talk was of football and politics--occasional poker games ensued. The issues of the day were argued. There was only one winner. None of us (even with our high falutin’ college educations) could defeat the man from Bakersfield. He had such an ingrained sense of dignity and respect for each individual person--no matter his “status”.

Answers to complex problems were somewhat simple for him. In the final analysis, “is it fair?”, was all that mattered.
This week, America will honor the same kids that Governor Faubus humiliated 50 years ago.

What has been lost to time, is that the real heroes were the good people of Little Rock who put their lives on the line, and brought about real change.

That is the real untold storey of the Civil Rights movement. The 101st Airborne didn’t end segregation. Neither did those of us white do-gooders who traveled below the Mason-Dixon line to teach school, register voters, or sit-in. Neither soldiers nor carpet baggers ended segregation. Ordinary citizens doing extraordinary things did.
That was Papa Warren’s genius. He knew that given the opportunity, decent people will do the decent thing. After all, he was one of them.

White supremists like Oliver Stone, Fletcher Prouty and the other Liberty Lobby folk are out there. We should be ever vigilant. Racism and hatred lay like snakes in the weeds, ready to strike us at any time. But those who decry the status of race relations in America today ain’t got a clue.

We’ve come more than a long way, baby. And we did it in an incredibly non-violent fashion--simply because nine ordinary white males, had the guts to write:
“To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority...that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone......’’separate but equal’’ has no place ..(it is) inherently unequal”.
The words became law. And then an entire nation was forever changed.
Twenty years after he wrote those words, he died. I wonder if he knew how much we loved him.