As Sept. 4 approached, most students figured a black kid would never show up.
One might, though. And Marty and his buddies couldn’t stand it.
Now, 50 years later, he tries to explain. He takes a long look over the lake before he comes up with the words.
“The peer pressure was just unbelievable, “ he says. “I can understand why teenagers do what they do, because I felt it back then. You do things that, looking back, you can’t believe you did. All we knew was that she was different from us and we didn’t want her there.”