This was the name given to the nine black high school students who captured the national spotlight while trying to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957.
In, 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Board of Education that segregation in the public schools was unconstitutional and that school systems should begin plans to desegregate.
Daisy Bates, the Arkansas state president of the NAACP, got the parents of nine students, thought to have the necessary aptitude to withstand outside pressures from protestors, to agree to enroll their children in Central High.
On September 2, 1957, when the students tried to attend school, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus violated the Supreme Court's decision and called in the National Guard to prevent the nine black students from entering the school building.
After other unsuccessful attempts, the Little Rock Nine tried again three weeks later, this time armed with a court order. They were met with an angry mob of about 1,000 people, and were again unsuccessful in entering the school. The next day, Little Rock Mayor Woodrow Mann requested that federal troops be sent in, and President Dwight Eisenhower agreed. On September 25, 1957, and every day thereafter, the Little Rock Nine were escorted to school by the National Guard.
Although they were protected by the Guard from mobs outside of the school, white students inside the school still constantly harassed them, verbally and physically. All but one of the Little Rock Nine stayed in school for the rest of the year.
The Little Rock Nine were Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Gloria Ray, Melba Patillo, Carlotta Walls, Terrance Roberts, Thelma Mothershed, Minnijean Brown, and Jefferson Thomas.
Copyright © 2002 Educational Broadcasting Corporation, Inc.
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