Summary: The Little Rock School Desegregation Crisis

In a predominantly black high school, Freddie Watts is the principal and Jimmy Brothers is the assistant principal. They are both African American administrators. During a heated conversation between the two administrators and Ann Griffin, a white tenured teacher. Griffin stated that she “hated all black folks.” After the conversation there was word that spread among their colleagues which are both black and white.

The story of the Little Rock Nine takes place in the Spring of 1957, and there were 517 African American students who lived in the Central High School District located in Little Rock, Arkansas. Although, eighty students took an interest in accompanying Central during the fall semester. These African American students had the opportunity to be interviewed by the Little Rock School Board. Out of the results of the interview, seventeen of the eighty African American students were eligible to attend Central High School. As the Central High School fall semester began, only nine of the seventeen students decided to attend Central High School.

The Little Rock School Desegregation Crisis: Moderation and Social Conflict Racism and equality seems to always been a problem in America. September 4, 1957 Arkansas governor failed the African American community by denying them entrance to Central High School. Governor Orval E. Faubus ordered Arkansas National Guard to surround the high school to keep it an all-white school. Guards standing at the entrances telling these nine african american student they could not enter because they are a different color.

In the following weeks, Governor Faubus had legal proceedings against him by Judge Davies, and had been persuaded by President Eisenhower to expel the National Guard and permit the Little Rock Nine to enter Central High School (“Integration”4). Governor Faubus was set on not letting anybody of the African American race in Little Rock Central High School. His will of not letting blacks into school got to the point of Judge Davies pressing legal charges on him for not following orders given to him by people above Governor Faubus. This proved that Governor Faubus was not obedient to obey the requests from the people above him and had no care for the integration of Central High School, nor the integration influenced by the Little Rock Nine. This also resulted in President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s sending federal troops to Little Rock to enforce the 1954 desegregation ruling of the Supreme Court.

“The most oppressive feature of black secondary education was that southern local and state governments, through maintaining and expanding the benefits of public secondary education for white children, refused to provide public high school facilities for black children.” In sum, Anderson uses this chapter to build a broader argument about the “separate, but equal doctrine” under Plessy v. Ferguson that mandated segregation. More specifically, he situates this argument through case studies in Lynchburg, VA and Little Rock, AR. In the culminating chapter, James Anderson discusses the emergence of historically black universities and black land-grant colleges.

In 1957, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas’s decision, segregation in public education violated the Fourteen Amendment, but Central High School refused to desegregate their school. Even though various school districts agreed to the court ruling, Little Rock disregarded the board and did not agree to desegregate their schools, but the board came up with a plan called the “Blossom plan” to form integration of Little Rock High despite disputation from Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus. Desegregating Central high encountered a new era of achievement of black folks into the possibility of integrating public schools, and harsh resistance of racial integration. Although nine black students were admitted into Little Rock harsh violence and

The segregation of schools based on a students skin color was in place until 1954. On May 17th of that year, during the Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education, it was declared that separate public schools for black and white students was unconstitutional. However, before this, the segregation of schools was a common practice throughout the country. In the 1950s there were many differences in the way that black public schools and white public schools were treated with very few similarities. The differences between the black and white schools encouraged racism which made the amount of discrimination against blacks even greater.

On September 25th, 1957, in Little Rock, Arkansas, nine courageous African American students entered not only through the doors of Central High, but the doors leading to change. They were strong enough to do this and knew what they were doing and understood it’s worth. The integration of Little Rock Central High was a milestone in the civil rights movement, and it was known across the country and through the world. Though there were likely many different reasons battling in the nine’s head about why or why not to go, they chose to go to the school.

The equality of black and white people has been a social injustice for many centuries. In 1957, nine black students were involved in the desegregation of Little Rock Central High (Little Rock Nine). The Little Rock Nine were the most influential group of students involved in the civil rights movement which is shown by the great impact they made making their legacy still stand today. The Little Rock Nine story is an inspirational one.

History is a comprised of individual choices. Those choices can work to include or exclude others. In 1957 nine black students chose to integrate Little Rock Central High School and a whole group of white kids worked to exclude them. There are three sets of primary source documents about the expulsion of one of these Little Rock Nine, Minnijean Brown. These document sets change one’s thinking about this expulsion because the first documents suggest that she was expelled for dumping chili on a white boy; the second sets of documents suggest that she was expelled because she retaliated against a white girl; and the final documents state that the expulsion was because she was acting as if she belonged at Central High School.

Even though the media displayed false information about the 1957 integration of Little Rock Central High School it changed peoples views on segregation. In A Mighty Long Way Little Rock, Arkansas nine African American students wanted to go to a well educated high school but they do not understand why so many people are angered that they are just getting a better education. During the integration of Little Rock Central High School in 1957, the media illuminated certain events and painted an inaccurate or incomplete picture of other events. The media illuminates many important events that show how racist white people are treating black people and showing people in the North who are against segregation and support integration.

The first African American woman to receive their doctoral degree in psychology is Inez Beverly Prosser. Prosser first began teaching in Texas segregated school systems. She graduated in 1993 from the University of Cincinnati with her PhD in educational psychology and she is well known for her dissertation, "The Non-Academic Development of Negro Children in Mixed and Segregated Schools.” In her dissertation she found African American students significantly benefited from segregated schools compared to an integrated schools. This is because they received more affection and support versus an integrated school where they had problems adjusting academically, socially and even in accepting their own identity.

The news media played an important role in illuminating the events happening in Little Rock, but they occasionally misinformed people of the actual events that were happening. The news media brought to light the struggles in Little Rock. First of all, the news media reported on an image of Hazel Bryan yelling at Elizabeth Eckford. In Little Rock Girl the author says, “Elizabeth, hoping to get the same education that her white peers were getting, and Hazel, determined to keep her from getting it” (LRG 1957 6-7).

First off, the governor closed all the schools in Little Rock, so no one could attend. Not only were all the students greatly affected, but the families of the Little Rock Nine had the more major punishments. Many of them were quickly fired from their jobs to reduce more conflicts with business. Once the schools were finally opened back up, each of the nine students were separated throughout the different schools, which caused even more awareness that schools needed to become desegregated. The impact that the Little Rock Nine had on today is the fact schools are all officially desegregated.

Brittney Foster SOCY 423 UMUC 03/01/2018 Racial integration of schools Racial integration is a situation whereby people of all races come together to achieve a common goal and hence making a unified system. Racial integration of schools is well elaborated in the two articles by Pettigrew and Kirp. These two articles say that combination in the American schools since 1954 has unceremoniously ushered out the Brown versus Board of Education which was a decision made by the Supreme Court. The topic of discussion of these two articles hence is relevant to our course since it gives us the light of how racial desegregation and racial integration shaped America’s history.