Journal Issue 4.2

An Interview with Sharon La Cruise

Interview by Anne Keefe

SLC: So when I approached people about her, people who liked her or didn't like her, I said I wanted an honest answer and assessment. I feel like I want to be honest about who she is, the good and the bad. And so out of that came my favorite quote, that her minister Sybil, who was in the film, said that he loved Daisy for everything that she was and wasn't. He understood her and so that was kind of the approach I took. I feel that way about her, that she's totally imperfect, but she's very much like everybody else which makes her story that much incredible because that means we could all do something incredible. We could all be active and contribute. We don't have to be saints; we don't have to be Rosa Parks or the way she's depicted. You could be an ordinary person, who, when you're called, you step up and do what needs to be done, which is what she was. And in between that she did it for her own weird reasons, some good, and some self-serving. Based on the traumatic childhood she had issues that made her want to fight that fight. She had these needs and this emptiness that needed to be filled by kind of getting this attention from the exterior. Most of the people I encountered were like, "I'll tell you my stories and my feelings about her." And that's what you see in the film, that they were very honest. We're not trashing her by any means but I have to say if she was alive she would not like this film, because she's a public figure and she had built up her image a certain way. And she's a woman from the 50s who wrote her autobiography in the 60s. If you read her autobiography it's very sad at times.

AK: Yes, I found that the autobiography gave the sense that she was very aware of how she presented herself, even in dicussing her traumatic past. She seemed so media savvy for that time.

SLC: She's a natural. She knew how to work the press, and she had the looks and stuff to carry it off. It's very interesting, because she had no training, and she's not educated. She's self-educated, but obviously if she had been, she's really quite smart. Because she did know how to work the media and I always felt bad for her because I understood both sides: how the Little Rock Nine felt about her--conflicted--especially because they felt like she was carrying this burden. But I always felt that she must have understood the power of the media as well. As long as she stayed in front of the camera, she was part of what people remember about what was going on at that school. The moment she stepped away from it, the story starts to die. And they couldn't always be in front of the cameras because every time the kids gave interviews, they would get beat up more at school each day. But now that they're adults, they don't all realize that, they really just feel like she was overbearing. She was in every picture, they couldn't take a picture without her. They couldn't get her out. So they had this resentment, they feel that she overshadowed their parents. Their parents didn't get as much recognition because of her.

AK: She seems to take on a kind of mothering role.

SLC: Which some of them don't appreciate.

AK: Right. And one in fact says that. She says, "One would assume that the person who is supposed to take care of me is my mother."

SLC: Yes, it was Betty Jean. Betty Jean is very clear that she's not a fan.

AK: I was thinking in that moment and also in that moment where Daisy stages the Thanksgiving meal--how her gender influenced people's reactions to her positively or negatively--that at times it helped to be in that mothering role in front of the press, but then it also worked against her in other ways.

SLC: I think you're right. And I think because of the time period it did and it didn't. Because she was beautiful, it definitely helped her. She was a darling. The press is all men, you know. And she's very beautiful so I think they were willing to accept her and interview her and enjoyed her company and were at her house, and it definitely had to do with how beautiful she looked. So it was pleasing for them to be in her company. And I think sometimes it worked against her, because people would diminish her thinking she's pretty so she's probably stupid. And in Arkansas I just find it fascinating because we're Northeasterners and would look at Arkansas as a poor state compared to New York and New Jersey. We were really very educationally conscious even back then. And in the black community, they are very class-conscious. So they are very conscious of the fact that she has no degree. And I swear to God, even today, in this day and age, I still meet people who mention it: "We didn't choose her to lead us, she doesn't even have a degree." All of the parents, a lot of them are educated. And they're like, we didn't choose her. And, this detail didn't end up in the film, but what I heard from the interviews was that since she didn't have that strong educational foundation when she was young, she would make a lot of grammatical errors. And it's really interesting because she's self-educated but you can't bridge and you can't replace that missing education. So she would make all these grammatical errors and they would snicker, the kids and the parents, because they felt superior to her in that way. And you know what happens when you're the leader, everybody's pissed at you, because you're bossing them around so they enjoy watching you kind of get cut down a little bit. So that played against her.
   Also, I think within the NAACP it's still very much a male-dominated environment and women are there but they aren't wielding any power. When I interviewed one of the heads of the NAACP, he said that they were making decisions in the room, but he also said that there's no women in there. So she doesn't really have a place. And she's leading this movement and this charge in Central High, but that's because the NAACP has no choice but to let her lead because she's the person on the ground with all the connections. If they had a choice, she would not be the person that they chose. But they were kind of looking in other areas of the South to fight, and they never expected Arkansas to light up the way it did. So it kind of was taken off balance because all along Arkansas was one of the first states after Brown to step up to the governor and everybody said that they were going to go by the law. The Brown decisions were met and they were going to do their thing. And then they just started to backtrack and tried to drag it out as long as they could, so while they're doing all that the NAACP is really looking to fight Mississippi and Alabama and these other states that they expected real resistance from. So there's a power vacuum there. And she was head of the NAACP so she was able to step in. But if they were given the choice, they wouldn't have chosen her. When I go to their events, they still have her picture up, and they have an educational event named after her. But she's not on that same level that you would expect when you think of her accomplishments. For what she did for the organization overall, she's still not recognized on a very high level.