Little Rock Nine Summary

After the US Supreme Court’s decision in the Brown v. Board of Education court case in 1954, the Little Rock school board announced its intention of complying with the federal constitutional requirements. This requirement was the integration of blacks and whites in the same schools. This was a big controversy, especially in the south. The School administrators didn’t expect there to be a problem when the nine black students were to be integrated into Little Rock’s Central High on September 3, 1957. Though the night before their first day, Governor Orval Faubus announced on statewide television that it “would not be possible to restore or to maintain order” if this forcible integration were to take place. The next morning he ordered the National Guard to surround Central High, not to let the students enter ("Little Rock desegregation crisis."). Shortly after, the NAACP turned to the federal district court, where Judge Ronald Davies ordered that the integration of Central High was going to occur. 

The next day, September 4^th, the nine students were arranged to be driven in two police cars to the school. The students were once again not allowed into the school, and were returned home safely. But one fifteen year old student, Elizabeth Eckford, did not get the message. She did not have a phone. When she arrived at the school, she was met by a National Guardsman, who would not let her in. She was forced to walk 100 yards to a bus stop, on the way being followed by a mob threatening to kill her and cursing at her (Altman). Eckman said, “I tried to see a friendly face somewhere in the mob—someone who maybe would help. I looked into the face of an old woman and it seemed a kind face, but when I looked at her again, she spat on me (“Little Rock Nine - Encyclopedia of Arkansas.").”

The nine students were to stay at home for more than two weeks, where they tried to keep up with their schoolwork the best they could. The Federal court ordered Gov. Faubus to stop interfering with the court’s order and Faubus removed the guardsmen from in front of the school. On September 23, the Nine entered the school for the first time. The crowd outside chanted, “Two, four, six, eight…We ain’t gonna integrate!”. They also chased and beat the black reporters covering the story. The Little Rock police were fearful that they could not control the increasingly unruly mob in front of the school and removed the nine students later that morning. They once again returned home and waited for more information as to when they would be able to go back to school (“Little Rock Nine - Encyclopedia of Arkansas.”).

The next day, Little Rock mayor Woodrow Mann requested that federal troops be sent in. President Eisenhower agreed, and, on September 25, the nine students were escorted to the school in a convoy that included armed soldiers and jeeps with machine gun mounts. A helicopter and 350 paratroopers from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division met them at the school. For the rest of the year, the nine black students attended school with this military protection. But the army troops could only protect them outside of the school. Inside the school, they were repeatedly attacked, both physically and verbally, by other students. So much in fact that one of them, Minnijean Brown, was expelled after she dumped a bowl of chili on some boys who had harassed her. Finally, two soldiers from the 101st Airborne were assigned to each of the students (Altman).

The other eight students stayed at Central until the end of the school year. On May 27, 1958, Ernest Green became the first black to graduate from Central. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to his graduation ceremony. Green later told reporters, “It’s been an interesting year. I’ve had a course in human relations first hand.” The other eight, like their counterparts across the district, were forced to attend other schools or take correspondence classes the next year when voters had chosen to close all four of Little Rock’s high schools to prevent any more desegregation effort (“Little Rock Nine - Encyclopedia of Arkansas.").