- Yeah, there were actually four black students, who broke the color barrier here at Central High School and three other all-white Charlotte schools.

And those first days were probably their worst days, but some schools were worse than others.

(mellow music) (camera shutter clicks) - [Tom] A lot of folks know the Dorothy Count story.

- Charlotte historian, Tom Hatchett says Dorothy Count's family feared for her safety at the old Harry P. Harding High School, transferring young Dorothy out after only four days.

- We were willing to grant her desires to study at Harding High School.

Contrary to this optimistic view, her experiences at school on Wednesday disillusioned our faith.

- So this is Gus.

This is the big picture of Gus here, right?

Yeah.

- And there's the Counts family.

- But for Gus Roberts leaving Second Ward High to become the first black student at Central High, well, things were a little different.

- Here at Central High School.

Gus Roberts was very fortunate to have a principal, who seems to have been much more proactive, to make sure that Gus Roberts, was not treated as ugly as Dorothy Counts was treated.

- [Jeff] These 1957 photos show the crowd was much smaller outside Central High that first day.

And principal Ed Sanders was outside too, waiting for Gus and his father to arrive.

- Ed Sanders had very carefully prepped students before Gus Roberts showed up, and said, "I believe that you are going to do the right thing."

He particularly got the football team together and said, "I believe that you are the leaders of our school.

You are not going to cause trouble.

And if you do, there will not be a football season."

- There was no brouhaha that I remember.

- [Jeff] Former Charlotte Mayor, Patsy Kinsey, class of '59, still remembers Gus Roberts, not just his first day at Central High, but also what came next.

- He was there for two full years and graduated part of our class.

He deserves an awful lot of credit for doing that, being a part of a big white high school.

- [Jeff] And in 1959 with his senior picture in the Central High yearbook, Gus Roberts finally accomplished, what no other black student had ever done before, walking the stage in cap and gown to receive a diploma from a desegregated Charlotte High School.

- They had to work it out on the ground.

They had to tough it out and they made history.

So sticking it out took a hard kind of courage.

- The hard kind of courage is the title of this James Baldwin essay in 1957 about Gus Roberts.

Baldwin interviewing Gus and his mother at their home.

"One among so many, that's kind of rough," his mother said, with Gus adding about his new school Central High, "I'll make it.

I ain't going back."

- [Jevan] Just hold your head high and go right on about your business, just like they don't exist, and that's what we did.

- That's the voice of Girvaud Roberts, Gus's younger sister, who also went to an all-white Charlotte Middle School, the same day Gus started school at Central.

Girvaud Roberts was interviewed for a UNC Charlotte Oral History project in 2006.

- [Girvaud] Then the next thing we know, integration was right there at our door.

- Every door somebody had to go through and somebody had to stick it out.

And Gus Roberts was really important in terms of beginning that transition, that we're still in today.

- [Jeff] That's why in a quiet cemetery off this busy Charlotte highway, the simple grave marker for Gus Roberts Central High School, class of '59 reads, "Pioneer for the Civil Rights Movement."

- I wanted to make sure people knew that what he stood for and the things that he did.

- We're talking with Gus Roberts son, DaCosta Roberts.

- Like I said, even though he may not have spoke about his time at Central High School, I think he basically used that experience, in basically how he kind of raised us, with a toughness and a determination to succeed.

- I'm proud to have been his classmate and unfortunately, I don't think a lot of people know what he did.

(camera shutter clicking) But he did.

(camera shutter clicking)