“It was like going into battle every day.” This is what Ernst Green said about his experience at Central High School (Stone). Ernst Green was one of the nine African Americans that were carefully chosen to take part in the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas (Little Rock). The Nine African American students that were picked for this brave action were called the Little Rock Nine. These students were a massive part in the Civil Rights Movement. Little Rock, Arkansas, like many southern cities, was very segregated. The nine students went through a lot of hardships, but in the end it all worked out.
Even though Arkansas was extremely segregated like all of the other southern states, an NAACP member said that this state would be the “brightest prospect among the southern states for integration”. The University of Arkansas was the first southern university to choose to have a black student attend their school. The relationship between blacks and whites was decent for a southern state at this time. In Little Rock, the state capital, a little bit of integration had been made in public places. Some of the stores in downtown Little Rock took the signs off of drinking fountains; also, the city zoo and the library started a little bit of integrating (Kirk). A major step for desegregation in Little Rock was the integration of city buses. There were no problems with the desegregation of city buses. Integrating schools in Little Rock was a whole different story.
In 1954, the US Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were illegal. Brown v. Board of Education was the case that caused the overturning of Plessy v. Ferguson and outlawed segregated schools (Kirk). Three years after this court case, the Central High Sc...
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...ttle Rock Nine got harassed day in and day out but they stuck to it and persevered. As much as the white students and parents didn’t want to accept it, they had to because integration will become a normal thing.
Works Cited
"Little Rock School Desegregation (1957)." Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle. The Martin Luther King Research and Education Institute, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
Stone, Andrea. "In Little Rock, a Small Act of Defiance Endures." USA TODAY. Aug. 29 2007: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
Kirk, John A. "Crisis at Central High." History Today (London, England) Vol. 57, No. 9. Sept. 2007: 23-30. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
Smiley, Glenn E. "Report on Little Rock." Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle. The Martin Luther King Research and Education Institute, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
Testament to his resilience and determination in the face of angry segregationists, Ernest assumed the role of head of his family at the age of sixteen, after his father’s death in 1953. Ernest’s mother, an elementary school teacher, and his younger brother Scott both respected this new allotment Ernest assumed at such a young age. His mother knew it was useless attempting to persuade the headstrong Ernest to reconsider attendance at Little Rock Central High School after he had been selected as one of the nine Negro children to attend. Students were selected based ...
“’One nigger down and eight to go’.. (page 150),” segregationists chanted while the Little Rock Nine heard while leaving school. This illustrates the verbal harassment and mistreatment that the group had to go through during the school year. But it was also a reminder that they had to be strong and make it through. “The boys had been taunting her, sticking their feet in the aisle to trip her, kicking her, and calling her names.. (page 149)” White people had believed African-Americans were beneath them, consequently the other students at Central High bullied Minnijean. This quote shows that, and also gives the reader an
In the book Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals, the author describes what her reactions and feelings are to the racial hatred and discrimination she and eight other African-American teenagers received in Little Rock, Arkansas during the desegregation period in 1957. She tells the story of the nine students from the time she turned sixteen years old and began keeping a diary until her final days at Central High School in Little Rock. The story begins by Melba talking about the anger, hatred, and sadness that is brought up upon her first return to Central High for a reunion with her eight other classmates. As she walks through the halls and rooms of the old school, she recalls the horrible acts of violence that were committed by the white students against her and her friends.
The Jim Crow Laws were the basis of everyday interactions between black and white people in the South. Melba Beals and the other “Little Rock Nine” braving the walk towards the doors of Central High School and several other landmark events spearheading the demise of these laws. In the book “Warriors Don’t Cry”, Melba Beals recalls her life during the 1950’s in America. In the south, more specifically Little Rock, the Jim Crow laws were no longer contested.
One personal quality that both the Little Rock Nine as well as white people like Danny and Link must have had was the ability to resist conforming to what others wanted from them. Day after day of getting spit on, verbally assaulted, tripped, and more surely helps to chip away at a person’s sense of self-esteem and dignity. It takes a strong person who is sure of her purpose to wake up each day, knowing the battle she will face, and walk into a school, knowing she is not welcome. Likewise, the white students and adults who supported integration continued fighting for a cause they knew was unpopular and even put them in physical danger. They knew their cause was greater than their own lives.
Kirk, John A. "Crisis at Central High." History Today (London, England) Vol. 57, No. 9. Sept. 2007: 23-30. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.
---. “Little Rock Told To Integrate Despite Militia.” New York Times 4 Sept. 1957: 1.
When President Dwight D. Eisenhower heard of what was happening to the new African American Central High students he had called the Arkansas National Guard and told them to withdraw from the Central High campus. He also heard that the white students would not let them in and accounted for whites in angry mobs. He called the United States army paratroopers unit. September 25th, 1957 the Little Rock Nine’s first day of school at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Patrol jeeps were driving all around the Central High School area including a few blocks more the paratroopers were escorting the nine African American students to first period. Just as President Dwight D. Eisenhower had expected there were many whites very unhappy screaming and chanting racial slurs at the African American students.
The Supreme Court is perhaps most well known for the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954. By declaring that segregation in schools was unconstitutional, Kevern Verney says a ‘direct reversal of the Plessy … ruling’1 58 years earlier was affected. It was Plessy which gave southern states the authority to continue persecuting African-Americans for the next sixty years. The first positive aspect of Brown was was the actual integration of white and black students in schools. Unfortunately, this was not carried out to a suitable degree, with many local authorities feeling no obligation to change the status quo. The Supreme Court did issue a second ruling, the so called Brown 2, in 1955. This forwarded the idea that integration should proceed 'with all deliberate speed', but James T. Patterson tells us even by 1964 ‘only an estimated 1.2% of black children ... attended public schools with white children’2. This demonstrates that, although the Supreme Court was working for Civil Rights, it was still unable to force change. Rathbone agrees, saying the Supreme Court ‘did not do enough to ensure compliance’3. However, Patterson goes on to say that ‘the case did have some impact’4. He explains how the ruling, although often ignored, acted ‘relatively quickly in most of the boarder s...
Also, although Little Rock was seen as a success, as the President was behind the blacks, after the incident was over, Governor Faubus closed all schools in Little Rock until 1959 as he would prefer there to be no schools than desegregated schools. This shows that there was always a way for the whites to get around desegregation without much attention being paid to it.
In 1957, many white people discriminated blacks because of their skin color. Throughout the South white people thought that blacks were a lesser race than them. The segregation laws stated that the blacks had to have everything separated, but this was only in the South. The blacks had separate drinking fountains, normally they were not as good as the white’s, separate bathrooms, and separate waiting rooms in separate hospitals. The Little Rock Nine were one of the first black kids to desegregate into Central High School. They are Carlotta Walls, Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Minnijean Brown, Gloria Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed, and Melba Beals. Although the song “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around” gives some detail evidence, the book, also known as A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School , and the photos allows us to see what life was like and read about what happened to the Little Rock Nine.
In the 1954 court ruling of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of schools was unconstitutional and violated the Fourteenth Amendment (Justia, n.d.). During the discussion, the separate but equal ruling in 1896 from Plessy v. Ferguson was found to cause black students to feel inferior because white schools were the superior of the two. Furthermore, the ruling states that black students missed out on opportunities that could be provided under a system of desegregation (Justia, n.d.). So the process of classification and how to balance schools according to race began to take place.
“The Supreme Court shut its eyes to all the facts, and in essence said—integration at any price, even if it means the destruction of our school system, our educational processes, and the risk of disorder and violence that could result in the loss of life—perhaps yours.”-Orval E. Faubus Governor of Arkansas. On May 17, 1954, the supreme court declared that law that establishing separate public schools for black and white student to be unconditional in the case Brown v. the Board Of Education. Schools all over the country started to integrate. But in Arkansas, Gov. Orval Faubus resisted the order of President Eisenhower to desegregate Central HIgh school in Little Rock. Eisenhower order integration to happen fast in Central. 9 African- american
"From Plessy v. Ferguson to Brown v. Board of Education: The Supreme Court Rules on School Desegregation." Teaching in New Haven: The Common Challenge. Yale University, n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2016. The case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka had been one of the most significant case in promoting civil right movement. It also marked the beginning of the 1950s and 1960s civil right movement. Even though there were many cases put people's attention to the education inequality, the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka led to the end of the segregation in school. Some states reacted in an extreme way, but the Congress eventually forced those states to reopen the public school. The significance of the case of Brown v. Board of Education shows the readers how successful the fighting through law had been. It also provides strong support for the case of Brown v. Board of Education to be the example of successful fighting through law. It reinforces the role of the case of Brown v. Board of Education in the civil right
took place in Little Rock, Arkansas. At one point in time in our country schools were segregated.