September 24th 1957: Little Rock integrated
On this day in 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalised the National Guard in an attempt to integrate Little Rock Central High School, Arkansas. In 1954, the Supreme Court had issued its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education declaring school segregation unconstitutional. While the Court ordered segregated schools to integrate “with all deliberate speed”, nationwide resistance to the ruling highlighted the Court’s weak enforcement powers. The Arkansas NAACP pressured the Little Rock schoolboard to accept the decision, leading to a plan for gradual integration, despite fervent opposition. Nine courageous African-American teenagers, called Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Minnijean Brown, Gloria Ray Karlmark Thelma Mothershed, and Melba Pattillo Beals, registered at Little Rock Central High School. The Little Rock Nine, as they were known, were recruited by veteran civil rights leader Daisy Bates, and thoroughly vetted and counselled in preparation for their ordeal. The segregationist governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, announced he would call the state National Guard to prevent integration. The troops barred the Little Rock Nine from entering the school when they arrived on September 4th, while a segregationist crowd harassed the black students. The case received national attention, and President Eisenhower tried to persuade Faubus to relent. Eventually, the President had no option but to send in federal troops. On September 24th, 1,200 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division arrived in Little Rock, and placed the National Guardsmen under federal control. The troops escorted the nine students into the school, and the next day they completed their first day of classes. However, the black students were the victim of racial abuse for the entirety of the school year, with Patillo having acid thrown in her face and Ray pushed down a flight of stairs. Only Green graduated from Little Rock Central High School, and Martin Luther King Jr. attended his ceremony in 1958. Faubus continued his opposition to racial integration, and in September 1958 closed closed all schools in Little Rock to prevent African-Americans from attending. The Little Rock crisis set a precedent for federal intervention in supporting the civil rights movement, and provided powerful images of the Little Rock Nine fighting for their right to an education.
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