Little Rock Nine

On this day in 1957, nine African-American students were successfully registered at Little Rock Central High School, breaking the state’s longstanding policy of segregation. Arkansas was one of the most segregated states in the country, alongside Mississippi and Alabama. The students, dubbed the Little Rock Nine, had been chosen by the NAACP based on good grades and behavior, and were asked not to respond to any taunts or threats for fear that things might escalate. Just weeks earlier, Governor Orval Faubus had mobilized the state’s National Guard to blockade the children from entering the all-white school. When they approached the school, the students and black journalists covering the event were chased and harassed while the National Guard stood by and did nothing.

Media coverage of the event focused national attention on Little Rock. Armed with the recent Brown v. Board of Education decision, Thurgood Marshall and other lawyers for the NAACP took the case to court and successfully had the governor’s policy ruled unconstitutional.

After spending weeks in failed attempts to negotiate with Faubus, President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the state’s entire National Guard, taking power away from the governor, and sent federal troops to Little Rock to open the blockade. An angry mob heckled and spat at the students as members of the Screaming Eagles 101st Airborne Division escorted them through the school’s front doors.

Although the soldiers remained in the school for the rest of the year, the nine black students were taunted, humiliated, and abused. Melba Pattillo had acid thrown into her face and fireballs thrown into her bathroom stall. Minnejean Brown was suspended for defending herself against an angry mob of boys, prompting some white students to circulate cards reading “One down, eight to go.” It would be 15 years after the first students were registered before all of Arkansas’ schools would finally become integrated. The desegregation battle at Little Rock is widely seen as one of the most significant moments in the Civil Rights movement. In 1999, the original nine students were invited to Washington and awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for their service, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Writers Almanac

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