The integration of Central High was a long and arduous process. Being a major part of civil rights history, it revealed how racist people can be. But how did society learn about this? The answer to that is quite simple: Media. The books, A Mighty Long Way, by Carlotta Walls LaNier and Little Rock Girl 1957, by Shelly Tougas both show ways media was used. The press illuminated the Little Rock desegregation events using photographs, news articles, and television to spread the word, but a single news article or picture doesn't quite tell the whole story. Photographs were one of the many ways the press spread the word to the public. In the book Little Rock Girl 1957 the author states that, “Counts’ Photo of L. Alex Wilson being brutally attacked is said to have prompted President Dwight D. Eisenhower to send troops to Little Rock.” Taken by Photographer Will Counts, the photograph of L. Alex …show more content…
On Page 78 of A Mighty Long Way, Carlotta writes, “But the local newspapers and the black press helped me keep up with what was going on.” The fact that the newspapers helped Carlotta keep up with the situation, shows how it could have been a great source for the situation. But as much as the newspapers can help spread the story, it can also be somewhat inaccurate, as conveyed on page 108 of A Mighty Long Way, where Carlotta writes, “The Gazette story summarized the first three months of integration at central this way: “not entirely calm, by any means, but not in turmoil either.” Perhaps that was the view from the outside peeking in, but from the center of the drama, it sure felt like turmoil to me.” What Carlotta writes about, is a perfect example of how the press can not only spread information, but can also give an inaccurate view of events. To summarize these points, Newspapers were a way people could have learned about the integration process in Little
However these students were chosen by the NAACP to go to this school based on character and academic reports. Once the Little Rock Nine were declined entry, all hell broke loose. Governor Faubus had called to other politicians to help enforce the segregation laws. The little rock nine had started protests and riots to finally integrate public schools instead of keeping the segregation law. About a week after Governor Faubus had called on enforcement, the mayor of little rock had called President Eisenhower for an armed and fully secured escort of the Little Rock Nine.
Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock’s Central High School by Melba Pattillo Beals is a memoir of Beals’ experience as one of the Little Rock Nine, a group of students in Arkansas who were the first African American students to integrate the state’s public high schools. Beals was only fifteen when the decision was made that schools in Arkansas would integrate. Beals details her experience from the moment she found out she had been chosen to integrate into Little Rock High School, to having to endure walking the halls and trying to learn in an environment where almost everyone hated her on the basis of something she could not control. She reveals instances of mental and physical abuse from students and
While the press was divided over the murder of Isaiah Nixon, the responsibility of the black and white press during the 1940s was completely segregated. The black press had evolved out of the necessity to supplement the white press in order to fully voice the concerns of the black community. In this evolution the black press became protestors and in the words of Gunnar Myrdal, a ‘fighting press’ . The mission of the black press was to eliminate the press stereotype of the ‘black criminal’ and to demonstrate the humanity within the black community. Stories such as the Nixon’s shined, the Nixon’s became beacons of hope for the black community.
Daisy Lee Gatson Bates (November 11, 1914 – November 4, 1999) was an American civil rights activist, publisher, journalist, and lecturer who played a leading role in the Little Rock Integration Crisis of 1957. She also worked for the NAACP (National Association Advancement of Colored People) presidency, along with the head of the Arkansas State Press to show how she truly felt towards the situations. Daisy Bates was trying to prove a message that African-Americans were not dangerous in our society and that everyone was equal in every way. At the time, there weren’t major situations until 1957 when the Little Rock Crisis began. The Little Rock Crisis school officials interviewed approximately eighty black students for Central High School, the largest school in the city and nine students were chosen, “Melba Patillo Beals,
In 1957 Seventeen black students passed a screening process but eight withdrew their application on the first day. The remaining nine would attempt to be the first black students to enter central high school escorted by police. (“Little Rock Nine”). On the first day of class, Governor Faubus of arkansas deployed units from the Arkansas National Guard and state police to prevent the nine students from entering the school. The scene made international news, and soon Little Rock was a popular place in the ongoing civil rights struggle.
This can be seen in Little rock crisis; a crisis caused by the Little Rock Nine. The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The students were being integrated into the nearly all-caucasian school due to the Brown V Board decision forcing racial desegregation. Consequently, their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. Governor Orval Faubus challenged efforts by the school board to institute a gradual school desegregation process and ordered state National Guard troops to defy Federal law and stop nine African-American students from attending an all-white high school.
Through this research, a novel was able to be put together chronologically to show the importance of the role of press in showcasing the Civil Rights
This type of medium is written from the reporter’s view meaning that it can be biased and show an incomplete story. Published in the Arkansas Democrat newspaper, chief attorney for the white council, Amis Guthridge shared his opinion. On page 184 of A Mighty Long Way Carlotta says, “I know Mrs. Bates was as dumbfounded as I was just two days after the bombing to read in the newspaper the wild implication by Amis Guthridge, chief attorney for the white Citizens Council. He suggested that Negros might have been behind the bombing in some way.” This newspaper told the world that Negros were willing to hurt their own.
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
In the essay, Crisis in Little Rock, author William Doyle reveals a country at war with itself. Polarized over the morality of segregation, the United States’ federal and state powers found themselves in a deadlocked over the interpretation of African American constitutional rights. Doyle depicts the citizen outrage over the integration of Little Rock’s Central High School, the attempts of state officials to circumvent Supreme Court orders, and the bravery of the ten students who volunteered to be Central High’s first African American pupils. The dismantling of Reconstruction efforts in 1876 led to the establishment of Black Codes and Jim Crow law throughout the South.
In the book Warriors Don 't Cry, Melba and her friends integrate into Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Melba and her friends experiences troubles as she tries to survive integration. Beals reveals a lot of things that would gives hint to things that we see ahead. The book mainly focuses on the south, light has been shed on events in the north around the same time when the Little Rock Nine (Bars) integrated. This essay will make inferences that show how people in the southern schools will continue to be ruthless and slow acceptance for the nine and for the north schools how whites will except African-Americans more.
The media is illuminating racial relations in the South and they are showing how people in the North are being treated. When people in the North sees how the segregationists are treating African Americans in the South, they support the side of integration. In “A Mighty Long Way”, Carlotta said that, “Finally one of them delivered a crushing blow to the back of Wilson”s head with an heavy object believed to be a brick” (pg.85 Lanier). People are seeing how white racists are attacking African-Americans.
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.
For the next few months, the African American students attended school under armed supervision. Even so, they faced physical and verbal abuse from their white peers’’(Source B).This demonstrates how people got together and protested along with the African American students on how the segregationists were being racist and treating them like they were nonexistent. This also shows how the segregationists were ignoring the fact that others were disagreeing with them, but they were mainly focused on being inconsiderate and treating the ‘’Little Rock Nine’’ poorly because they were Negros. After All, the Little Rock Showdown displayed how the segregationists treated the Negro students unequally because they were just as qualified to go to school with white