Grand Central: the Untold Story

About the Book

Grand Central: The Untold Story is a non- fiction story written by Floyd Smith, a security officer at Little Rock Central High School. As teenagers Floyd, his cousin Jackie Fells and a neighborhood friend, Bennie Johnson would physically train together to become fit to prepare for high school football. After graduating from Central High and Bennie from cross-town rival Hall High, the three friends continued to workout together to stay in peak physical condition.

In 1987, then Central High principal Everett Hawks hired these three men because he felt he needed a new breed of security personnel to ensure a comfortable learning environment on campus. Being physically fit ex-athletes and growing up in the area near Central High, these young men were eager to meet the challenge of preserving a wholesome atmosphere for learning. This task was a daily burden because Little Rock was being plagued by a growing drug and street gang problem that was overflowing on to the local school campuses. These men wanted to insure the students of the Little Rock School District a safe environment to learn. The officers all grew up in the era when the district mandated busing to impose full scale integration. When they graduated from high school race relations in the Little Rock District had improved dramatically and the future appeared bright. But the 1980s turned the table and the district was fighting what society had brought to the table: gangs, drugs and the problems of educating students in this type of environment. To see how these security officer attempted to deter these problems away from the school read Grand Central: The Untold Story.

About the Author

Floyd Smith and Rev. Benny Johnson were educated in the Little Rock School District. They both experienced the the ups and downs of court ordered integration in the 1960's & 70's. They became security personnel for one of the nations most popular high school; Little Rock Central during the gang and drug infested era of the 1980's & 90's. Smith is still currently security at Central High while Johnson leads the "Stop the Violence" program in Little Rock.

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