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Sixty-two years since the Little Rock Nine made history

Sixty-two years since the Little Rock Nine made history

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Central High School integration controversy made national headlines

www.arkansashistory.com It has been more than half a century since the socalled Little Rock Nine, a group of black high-school students who challenged racial segregation in the public schools of Little Rock, Arkansas, took a stand and entered the halls of Little Rock Central.

The group — consisting of Melba Pattillo, Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Minnijean Brown, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls, Jefferson Thomas, Gloria Ray, and Thelma Mothershed — became a lightning rod for the struggle to desegregate public schools in the United States, especially in the South.

The events that followed their enrollment in Little Rock Central High School provoked intense national debate about racial segregation and civil rights.

During the summer of 1957, the Little Rock Nine enrolled at Little Rock Central High School, which until then had been all white. The students’ effort to enroll was supported by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which had declared segregated schooling to be unconstitutional.

That was 65 years ago, but those who lived through the events still remember the cloud of controversy and animosity surrounding the decision.

Warned by the Little Rock board of education not to attend the first day of school, the nine African American students arrived on the second day accompanied by a small interracial group of ministers. They encountered a large white mob in front of the school, who began shouting, throwing stones, and threatening to kill the students. In addition, about 270 soldiers of the Arkansas National Guard, sent by Arkansas Gov. Orval Eugene Faubus, blocked the school’s entrance.

Faubus had declared his opposition to integration and his intention to defy a federal court order requiring desegregation.

The confrontation in Little Rock drew international attention to racism and civil rights in the United States as well as to the battle between federal and state power. Television and newspaper reporters devoted substantial coverage to the “Little Rock Nine,” as the students were called.

Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Governor Faubus, and Little Rock’s mayor, Woodrow Mann, discussed the situation over the course of 18 days, during which time the nine students stayed home. The students returned to the high school on September 23, entering through a side door to avoid the protesters’ attention and wrath.

They were eventually discovered, however, and white protesters became violent, attacking African American bystanders as well as reporters for northern newspapers.

The students were sent home, but they returned on September 25, protected by U.S. soldiers. Despite Eisenhower’s publicly stated reluctance to use federal troops to enforce desegregation, he recognized the potential for violence and state insubordination. He thus sent the elite 101st Airborne Division, called the “Screaming Eagles,” to Little Rock and placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal command.

The Little Rock Nine continued to face physical and verbal attacks from white students throughout their studies at Central High. One of the students, Minnijean Brown, fought back and was expelled. The remaining eight students, however, attended the school for the rest of the academic year. At the end of the year, in 1958, senior Ernest Green became the first African American to graduate from Little Rock Central High School.

Governor Faubus was reelected in 1958, and rather than permit desegregation, he closed all of Little Rock’s schools.

Many school districts in the South followed Little Rock’s example, closing schools or implementing “school-choice” programs that subsidized white students’ attendance at private segregated academies, which were not covered by the Supreme Court’s decision. Little Rock Central High School did not reopen with a desegregated student body until 1960, and efforts to integrate schools and other public areas throughout the country continued through the 1960s, with some not fully integrating until 1970s

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