LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) -- It was a full blown riot in parts of southern and southwest Jefferson County on the first two days of court-ordered
WHAS11 News film shows school buses were attacked—rocks and bottles were thrown at them. One man tried to run a bus off the road. This all happened as black students were being bussed for the first time to all white schools and vice versa. The violence in this section of Louisville, near Valley High School, caused a state of emergency that made national news.
The Chicago Tribune blared, “10,000 rampage in Louisville bussing fight.”
Those scenes are not forgotten by Amy Stewart, Family Resource Coordinator at Greenwood Elementary.
“We accidentally drove through one of the riots one night. I remember being fearful,” Stewart said.
Future Greenwood Principal Dylan Owens also grew up nearby and remembers, “It was a very divided time then in our city.”
But Greenwood occupies a special place in the history of the rioting, the racial tension, and our city. It all happened in the snap of a second.
At the age of 8, Mark Stewart, now 49-years-old, had no idea his simple gesture would reset the view of Louisville to the world.
The late Courier-Journal and Louisville Times photographer Michael Coers happened to walk in at the right moment. Stewart was sitting alone in the classroom and looked up. He saw 9-year–old Darrell Hughes, an African American boy coming to Greenwood for the first time, walking in.
Stewart said, “Here walked Darrell in the room. He had the high platform shoes on, cruising by. So, here's my chance to make him feel welcome, so reached up, I reach my hand out to shake it. I've got my hand up like this and going by and just went like that. He went by and I said, ‘Welcome to Greenwood, good to have you’, just nodded his head, he did smile a little like he was relieved.
It wasn’t just any photo. The picture would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize. Today if it were taken under the same circumstances, it would go “viral” instantaneously on the internet.
Coers died in 2007 after a long battle with complications from Lyme disease. Retired photographer Bill Luster of the Courier-Journal, worked closely with Coers and knows the story behind the photo. He told us, “He got it because he was walking down this hall and he walked into this room and there it happened. He was in there maybe ten seconds.”
Darrell Hughes graduated from Iroquois High School in 1985 and left Louisville. He worked construction jobs across the south. He told the Courier-Journal in 1995 that he was scared to death that day in 1975, but in the end, race relations can be dealt with like work—do the right thing. Blacks and whites together? He said he's always had more white friends than black. We tried finding Hughes today. We left messages on Facebook pages that appeared like his but had no responses.
Mark Stewart remembers last speaking to Hughes briefly in 1995. In the meantime, he fell in love with Greenwood. He said, “My mother always made sure I was the first one in school and the first one in the first row.”
In fact, he came back to the school as the head custodian 21 years ago and will retire in June. It’s all in the family here. His daughter went to school here, and he met his wife, Amy, right here.
She says the photo is ever present, “I see an innocent little boy sitting in the front row of his desk and other innocent little boy trying to get through his first day of school, probably very nervous.”
Now, 42 years later, that one day caught in a click, is now a permanent part of Greenwood. It is now the focus of a new large mural leading to the school's brand new library wing. It’s the idea of the principal who says, “This photo really forces us to step back and say that sometimes the children need to set the example for the adults.”