Thread by @lmauricecpr

The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine Black high-school students who challenged racial segregation in the public schools of Little Rock, Arkansas. These students became the center of the struggle to desegregate public schools in the United States, especially in the South.

During the summer of 1957, Melba Pattillo, Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Minnijean Brown, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls, Jefferson Thomas, Gloria Ray, and Thelma Mothershed, enrolled at Little Rock Central High School, which until then had been all white.

The students’ effort to enroll was supported by the US Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which had declared segregated schooling to be unconstitutional. The nine were warned by the Little Rock board of education not to attend the first day of school.

They arrived on the second day accompanied by a small interracial group of ministers, encountering a large white mob in front of the school who began shouting, throwing stones, and threatening to kill them. Gov. Orval Faubus even had soldiers blocking the school’s entrance.

The confrontation in Little Rock drew international attention to racism and civil rights in America. Then Pres. Eisenhower, Governor Faubus, and Little Rock’s mayor, Woodrow Mann, discussed the situation over the course of 18 days, during which time the nine students stayed home.

The Black students returned to the high-school on September 23, but had to enter through a side door to avoid the protesters. They were eventually discovered, and white protesters became violent, attacking Black bystanders as well as reporters for northern newspapers.

The students were sent home, but they returned on September 25, protected by U.S. soldiers. Eisenhower sent the elite 101st Airborne Division, called the “Screaming Eagles,” to Little Rock and placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal command.

The nine Black students continued to face physical and verbal abuse from white students. One of the students, Minnijean Brown, fought back and was expelled. The remaining eight students attended the school for the rest of the academic year tolerating the daily racism.

At the end of the year, in 1958, senior Ernest Green became the first African American to graduate from Little Rock Central High School. Governor Faubus was reelected in 1958, and, rather than permit desegregation, he closed all of Little Rock’s schools.

Many districts in the South followed Little Rock’s example, closing schools. Little Rock Central High School didn't reopen with a desegregated student body until 1960, and efforts to integrate schools and other public areas throughout the country continued through the 1960s.