Carlotta Walls LaNier, of the Little Rock Nine, to speak to CK Students

Carlotta Walls LaNier, the youngest member of the Little Rock Nine, will speak to Middle School students and Upper School juniors on December 3rd.

Walls enrolled at Central High School in Little Rock, AK, as a sophomore in 1957.  She is only one of three Little Rock Nine members to have graduated from Central.  After graduating, Wall attended Michigan State University for two years before moving to Colorado with her family and finishing her B.A. at the University of Northern Colorado.

In 1977 she founded a real estate brokerage firm, LaNier and Company, in Denver.  She has also served as the President of the Little Rock Foundation, a scholarship organization for African-American students and served as a Trustee for the Iliff School of Theology as well as the University of Northern Colorado. 

In 1958 she and the other members of the Little Rock Nine was awarded the Spingarn Award, given by the NAACP to an African-American of outstanding merit (other recipients include W.E.B. Debois, Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.).  In 1999 President Bill Clinton presented all of the Little Rock Nine with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor in the United States. 



For more information on Walls and the Little Rock Nine, please visit the links below:
Encyclopedia of Arkansas - Little Rock Nine
Encyclopedia of Arkansas - Carlotta Walls LaNier
On 50th Anniversary, "Little Rock Nine" Get A Hero's Welcome, Washington Post