LaNier's family road-trips to Dodgers games, with Daddy carefully routing around segregated hotels by stopping at relatives' homes.

At age eight, LaNier visits New York and experiences life without Jim Crow signs and segregated seating for the first time.

The Supreme Court's Brown v. Board ruling comes down, and LaNier expects her segregated Little Rock school to integrate immediately.

LaNier and her friend Gloria are turned away from registering at Central and meet NAACP leader Mrs. Daisy Bates outside.

Superintendent Blossom tells Black students they cannot join extracurriculars at Central and warns the boys to avoid white girls.

Governor Faubus orders the Arkansas National Guard to block the nine Black students from entering Central on their first day.

President Eisenhower deploys the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, and the nine enter Central through the front door.

The Associated Press names the Little Rock Nine story the top national news story of the year at a holiday celebration.

Minnijean Brown is expelled from Central after calling a white student 'white trash' in response to relentless daily attacks.

Ernest Green becomes the first Black student to walk across the graduation stage at Central, with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in attendance.

Faubus uses his gubernatorial powers to shut down all three Little Rock public high schools rather than allow integration to continue.

LaNier's house is bombed in the middle of the night, and her father is detained and beaten by the FBI.

Herbert Odell Monts is convicted of bombing the Walls' home by an all-white jury and sentenced to the maximum five years.

LaNier and Jefferson Thomas graduate from Central, with LaNier becoming the first Black girl to graduate from the school.

Barack Obama wins the presidential election, and LaNier sees it as a hopeful bookend to her armed escort into Central.

LaNier grows up under Jim Crow segregation in Little Rock, navigating its restrictions until she volunteers to become one of the first nine Black students to attend the formerly all-white Central High School. Governor Faubus deploys the National Guard to block them and stokes a violent white mob, forcing President Eisenhower to send in federal troops to enforce integration. Inside Central, the nine endure relentless abuse from white peers, ultimately losing Minnijean Brown to expulsion while Ernest Green becomes the school's first Black graduate. After Faubus shuts down all Little Rock high schools for a year to halt integration, LaNier returns for her senior year determined to graduate, only for her family's home to be bombed and her father beaten by the FBI under false accusations. LaNier and Jefferson Thomas eventually graduate, but the trauma of the fight follows LaNier for decades as she tries to forget her past. The memoir concludes with Barack Obama's election, which LaNier sees as a profound milestone along the journey she and her eight comrades began at Central.

The headline events of LaNier's landmark fight for educational integration.

As a child, LaNier accompanies Big Daddy to meatpacking houses and watches him conduct business confidently alongside white customers.

LaNier sees photographs of Emmett Till's open casket after his lynching in Mississippi, recognizing his face as that of her friends and family.

LaNier's great-grandfather Papa Holloway dies, and word spreads at his funeral that LaNier plans to attend the formerly all-white Central.

A violent crowd of white segregationists forms at Central's gates, shouting slurs and waving Confederate flags, on the nine's first day.

Elizabeth Eckford, who did not receive the message to meet the group, is attacked and harassed alone by the segregationist mob.

The nine gather regularly at Mrs. Bates's home while barred from Central, and she runs a media campaign to build national awareness.

Thurgood Marshall wins his court case, and Judge Davies formally orders Faubus and the Arkansas National Guard to stand down.

The nine are pulled from their classes and escorted out of Central in police cars after the mob outside swells beyond control.

White students circulate cards around Central inviting classmates to kick each Black student once per day until the school year ends.

LaNier attends summer school in Chicago to make up lost credits and grows close to her great-aunt and uncle there.

LaNier declines to attend the March on Washington in person and watches Dr. King's speech on television instead.

Four Black girls are killed when a bomb explodes at the 16th Street Baptist Church, a known civil rights gathering place.

A CBS television movie about Central airs, prompting LaNier to tell her husband and daughters about her role as one of the nine.

President Clinton holds open the doors of Central for the nine during their ceremonial walk at the 40th anniversary celebration.

Mrs. Bates dies, and on the same day the nine receive the Congressional Gold Medal from President Clinton at a ceremony.

The story of LaNier's path to Central is framed by formative childhood encounters with racism, including seeing Emmett Till's open casket and the death of her great-grandfather, after which family anxieties about her enrollment at Central come to the surface. When the nine are blocked from entering school, Mrs. Bates becomes their indispensable strategist, organizing their protection, media presence, and daily routines from her home while Thurgood Marshall wins their case in court. The violence of the white mob and harassment inside Central's halls — including threatening cards and Elizabeth Eckford's brutal public attack — illustrate the depth of white resistance to integration. After graduation, LaNier quietly builds an adult life while watching major civil rights milestones from afar, including the March on Washington and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. Decades later, a television movie about Central forces LaNier to finally reveal her past to her family, beginning her public journey toward reconciliation. The 40th anniversary walk through Central's front doors with President Clinton, and the bittersweet day Mrs. Bates died as the nine received the Congressional Gold Medal, mark the arc of that long journey.

The supporting moments and people who shaped LaNier's integration story.

LaNier's teacher asks for volunteers to attend Central, and LaNier signs up without telling her parents, viewing it as a simple school transfer.

LaNier's Aunt Eva, a Dunbar librarian, opposes her attending Central and later asks LaNier's parents to withdraw her from the school.

Faubus delivers a fearmongering speech the night before school, and LaNier initially believes the deployed National Guard soldiers are there to protect her.

LaNier realizes during the nine's national summer tour that their fight is about opening educational doors for all Black children everywhere.

Mrs. Bates arranges for LaNier and other displaced Black students to be hosted by sympathetic families in other states so they can attend school.

When schools reopen, only LaNier and Jefferson return to Central among the original nine, and LaNier feels she has unfinished business there.

City buildings including the school board offices are bombed in the fall of LaNier's senior year, but she pays little attention, focused on college.

LaNier overhears Daddy telling Mother that FBI agents beat him for two days and tried to force him to confess falsely.

Police Chief Smith kills his wife and dies by suicide, and Mrs. Bates suspects double murder, effectively burying the real bombing investigation.

The state supreme court overturns Maceo's conviction and declares that Black defendants are too often tried by all-white juries.

LaNier boards a train out of Little Rock after graduation and feels a sense of closure about her years there.

LaNier declines a promotion as the first Black service representative at Mountain Bell Telephone to avoid the trauma of being 'the first' again.

Daddy is diagnosed with leukemia, deteriorates quickly, and dies at age 53, leaving LaNier and her family devastated.

At the 30th anniversary visit to Central, LaNier breaks down in the hallways and realizes she cannot continue burying her past.

LaNier calls Herbert Monts and meets with him to hear his full account of police torture, coerced confession, and wrongful conviction.

LaNier's path to Central begins with a private, almost casual decision to sign up — a choice her Dunbar-connected family greets with more anxiety than support, fearing white teachers would never invest in Black students the way their own community had. The night before school, Faubus's speech exposes LaNier's misplaced faith in authorities, and the years at Central strip away her optimism layer by layer, from realizing the national stakes of the fight during the summer tour to watching her father return home broken after FBI detention. The bombing of her family's home and the corrupt legal proceedings that followed — culminating in a police chief's suspicious death and the eventual overturning of a coerced conviction — showed LaNier how deeply systemic racism reaches into the justice system. After graduation, LaNier spends years trying to outrun her trauma, declining a racial milestone at work, losing her father, and struggling in silence until a return visit to Central's hallways finally breaks through her defenses. Her healing comes through collective action: reconnecting with her comrades, taking speaking engagements, and ultimately meeting Herbert to hear his full story in his own words. Sharing that truth, and ensuring his innocence would not be forgotten, becomes its own form of justice for LaNier.

The key decisions, revelations, and emotional turning points in LaNier's journey.