Little Rock Nine 1957: The American Civil Rights Movement

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Little Rock Nine 1957
In a key event of the American Civil Rights Movement, nine black students enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little
Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957, trying a landmark 1954 U.S.
Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools illegal.. Despite the conflict, nine students signed up to be the first African
Americans to join Central High School, which opened in 1927 and was originally called Little Rock Senior High School. Minnijean Brown
(1941-), Elizabeth Eckford (1941-), Ernest Green (1941-), Thelma
Mothershed (1940-), Melba Patillo (1941-), Gloria Ray (1942-),
Terrence Roberts (1941-), Jefferson Thomas (1942-2010) and
Carlotta Walls (1942-) had been drafted by Daisy Gaston Bates
(1914-99), president of the Arkansas NAACP and
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In a televised address, Faubus insisted that violence and bloodshed might break out if black students were allowed to enter the school. The next day, the Mother's Leacue held a dawn service at the college as a rally against integration. That same day, federal judge Richard Davies issued a ruling that desegregation would continue as planned the next day.
The Little Rock Nine came for the first day of school at Central High on September 4, 1957. Eight arrived together, driven by Bates.
Eckford's family, though, did not have a phone, and Bates couldnt get ahold of her to let her know of the carpool plans. Therefore, Eckford arrived alone.
In September 1958, one year after Central High was integrated,
Governor Faubus closed Little Rock's high schools for the total year, awaiting a community vote, to prevent African-American presence.
Little Rock residents voted 19,470 to 7,561 against integration and the schools remained