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Little Rock Nine were a group of African American students who were refused the right to an education. The students attempted to attend school one morning to find the National-Gaurd at the doors waiting for them. They were told they were not allowed to go in and this just did not sit right with President Dwight D. Eisenhower.Later that month, President Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort the Little Rock Nine into the school.

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Desegregation of Schools

In its Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision, issued May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation of America's public schools was unconstitutional.

Until the court's decision, many states across the nation had mandatory segregation laws, or Jim Crow laws, requiring African American and white children to attend separate schools. Resistance to the ruling was so widespread that the court issued a second decision in 1955, known as Brown II, ordering school districts to integrate "with all deliberate speed."

Little Rock Central High School

In response to the Brown decisions and pressure from the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP), the Little Rock, Arkansas, school board adopted a plan for gradual integration of its schools.

The first institutions to integrate would be the high schools, beginning in September 1957. Among these was Little Rock Central High School, which opened in 1927 and was originally called Little Rock Senior High School.

Two pro-segregation groups formed to oppose the plan: The Capital Citizens Council and the Mother's League of Central High School.

Who Were the Little Rock Nine?

Despite the virulent opposition, nine students registered to be the first African Americans to attend Central High School. Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Patillo, Gloria Ray, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas and Carlotta Walls had been recruited by Daisy Gaston Bates, president of the Arkansas NAACP and co-publisher of the Arkansas State Press, an influential African American newspaper.

Daisy Bates and others from the Arkansas NAACP carefully vetted the group of students and determined they all possessed the strength and determination to face the resistance they would encounter. In the weeks prior to the start of the new school year, the students participated in intensive counseling sessions guiding them on what to expect once classes began and how to respond to anticipated hostile situations.

The group soon became famous as the Little Rock Nine.

Orval Faubus

On September 2, 1957, Governor Orval Faubus announced that he would call in the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the African American students' entry to Central High, claiming this action was for the students' own protection. In a televised address, Faubus insisted that violence and bloodshed might break out if Black students were allowed to enter the school.

The Mother's League held a sunrise service at the school on September 3 as a protest against integration. But that afternoon, federal judge Ronald Davies issued a ruling that desegregation would continue as planned the next day.

Elizabeth Eckford

The Little Rock Nine arrived for the first day of school at Central High on September 4, 1957. Eight arrived together, driven by Bates.

Elizabeth Eckford's family, however, did not have a telephone, and Bates could not reach her to let her know of the carpool plans. Therefore, Eckford arrived alone.

The Arkansas National Guard, under orders of Governor Faubus, prevented any of the Little Rock Nine from entering the doors of Central High. One of the most enduring images from this day is a photograph of Eckford, alone with a notebook in her hand, stoically approaching the school as a crowd of hostile and screaming white students and adults surround her.

Eckford later recalled that one of the women spat on her. The image was printed and broadcast widely in the United States and abroad, bringing the Little Rock controversy to national and international attention.

Ronald Davies

In the following weeks, federal judge Ronald Davies began legal proceedings against Governor Faubus, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower attempted to persuade Faubus to remove the National Guard and let the Little Rock Nine enter the school.

Judge Davies ordered the Guard removed on September 20, and the Little Rock Police Department took over to maintain order. The police escorted the nine African American students into the school on September 23, through an angry mob of some 1,000 white protesters gathered outside. Amidst ensuing rioting, the police removed the nine students.

The following day, President Eisenhower sent in 1,200 members of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and placed them in charge of the 10,000 National Guardsmen on duty. Escorted by the troops, the Little Rock Nine attended their first full day of classes on September 25.

Numerous legal challenges to integration continued throughout the year, and Faubus repeatedly expressed his wish that the Little Rock Nine be removed from Central High.

Although several of the Black students had positive experiences on their first day of school, according to a September 25, 1957, report in The New York Times, they experienced routine harassment and even violence throughout the rest of the year.

Melba Patillo, for instance, was kicked, beaten and had acid thrown in her face. At one point, white students burned an African American effigy in a vacant lot across from the school. Gloria Ray was pushed down a flight of stairs, and the Little Rock Nine were barred from participating in extracurricular activities.

Minnijean Brown was expelled from Central High School in February 1958 for retaliating against the attacks. Harassment went beyond the students: Gloria Ray's mother was fired from her job with the State of Arkansas when she refused to remove her daughter from the school. The 101st Airborne and the National Guard remained at Central High School for the duration of the year.

Ernest Green

On May 25, 1958, Ernest Green, the only senior among the Little Rock Nine, became the first African American graduate of Central High.

In September 1958, one year after Central High was integrated, Governor Faubus closed all of Little Rock's high schools for the entire year, pending a public vote, to prevent African American attendance. Little Rock citizens voted 19,470 to 7,561 against integration and the schools remained closed.

Other than Green, the rest of the Little Rock Nine completed their high school careers via correspondence or at other high schools across the country. Eckford joined the Army and later earned her General Education Equivalency diploma. Little Rock's high schools reopened in August 1959.

Did you know? Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. attended graduation ceremonies at Central High School in May 1958 to see Ernest Green, the only senior among the Little Rock Nine, receive his diploma.

Little Rock Nine Aftermath

Several of the Little Rock Nine went on to distinguished careers.

Green served as assistant secretary of the federal Department of Labor under President Jimmy Carter. Brown worked as deputy assistant secretary for workforce diversity in the Department of the Interior under President Bill Clinton. Patillo worked as a reporter for NBC.

The group has been widely recognized for their significant role in the civil rights movement. In 1999, President Clinton awarded each member of the group the Congressional Gold Medal. The nine also all received personal invitations to attend the inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2009.

Jefferson Thomas became the first of the Little Rock Nine to die when he succumbed to pancreatic cancer at the age of 67 on September 5, 2010. After graduating from Central High, Thomas served in the Army in Vietnam, earned a business degree and worked as an accountant for private companies and the Pentagon.

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Little Rock Nine - Definition, Names & Facts | HISTORY

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The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine Black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957. Their attendance at the school was a test of Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

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Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, involved Kansas  permitting racial segregation in some of the state's elementary schools. To end segregation in kansa schools, they were going to need some help. Topekans, joined by the NAACP, and several other cases such as  Briggs v. Elliott from South Carolina; Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia; Bolling v. Sharpe from the District of Columbia; and Gebhart v. Belton from Delaware, to help them win this horrible fight. On May 17, 1954, a unanimous vote deemed segregation in schools unconstitutional. "Separate but equal" facilities were no longer permitted.

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On May 17, 1954, by unanimous vote, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that "separate but equal" education facilities are "inherently unequal," and that segregation in the schools is, therefore, unconstitutional. The landmark case, known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, involved a Kansas statute permitting racial segregation in some of the state's elementary schools.

In many states African American students were placed in schools that were inferior to those attended by white children. The plaintiffs in Topeka did not charge that the schools' facilities their children attended were inferior, but that segregation itself did psychological and educational damage to black children forced to attend schools isolated from the other children in the community.

They began to develop their challenge in 1950 with Topeka attorneys Charles Scott, John Scott, and Charles Bledsoe. A petition to the school board was drafted and a number of African American citizens began the difficult but successful effort to collect necessary signatures. They were assisted in this effort by volunteers from the Menninger Foundation. When the Board of Education failed to terminate segregation as requested, black Topekans, joined by the NAACP, and several other cases: Briggs v. Elliott from South Carolina; Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia; Bolling v. Sharpe from the District of Columbia; and Gebhart v. Belton from Delaware, to take their fight to the U.S. Supreme Court. At the time of the Brown oral argument, 17 states in the Union provided for separate schools for white and black children. Four others permitted school boards to segregate. Those four were Wyoming, Kansas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

The Brown case was the first case to be argued to the court. Robert Carter, representing the Brown family and the other plaintiffs, began his argument on December 9, 1952.

Listen to this interview with Judge Robert Lee Carter in 1992.

The state of Kansas was represented by 36-year-old Assistant Attorney General Paul Wilson. By the fall of 1952, the school board of Topeka had been transformed by elections to a group whose majority did not want segregation and did not want to defend it. Kansas Attorney General Harold Fatzer, who would later become chief justice of the Kansas Supreme Court, was not enthusiastic about the state's side of the case. However, he could not concede that Kansas' law was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court essentially ordered the attorney general's office to file a brief and present oral arguments. Wilson, who would later become a much beloved law professor at the University of Kansas, wrote extensively about his experience in Brown. He had a feeling that he would lose the case because, as he said later, "history and social conscience had simply overtaken the law."

Following the 1952 oral argument, the Supreme Court justices remained deeply divided over the question of whether to uphold racial segregation in education. At the conclusion of the Court's session, the justices delayed their decision by asking the parties to present additional arguments. Five questions were issued to the parties, focusing on the original understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment and on judicial power to abolish segregation even if such abolition had not been contemplated by the writers of the Amendment and those who ratified it. The Court scheduled reargument on October 12, 1953. But those plans changed on September 9, 1953, when Chief Justice Fred Vinson died of a heart attack at the age of 63.

Less than one month after Chief Justice Vinson's death, Earl Warren took the oath of office to become the new Chief Justice of the United States. New arguments in Brown were rescheduled to begin on December 7, 1953.

During those arguments, the parties focused on whether, at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, Congress and others understood the Amendment would outlaw segregation in public schools. The parties also addressed whether future members of Congresses or the court had the power to interpret the Amendment to abolish segregation, it there was no such understanding at the time the Amendment was adopted.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that segregated public education violated the Fourteenth Amendment, a conclusion that rested not necessarily on the understanding or conditions existing when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, but on the later full development of public education and its current status in American life throughout the nation.

Because its decision applied to all public schools in a variety of local conditions, the Supreme Court was concerned about how to design a remedy. It directed the parties to submit additional briefs and return for another argument in 1955, this time concerning the relief that should be ordered. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that school boards must make a "prompt and reasonable start toward full compliance" and that the courts would monitor school boards to make sure they were putting compliance plans in place and following them.

In 1999, the U.S. District Court finally closed the Brown case in Topeka, after monitoring compliance for 40 years. Today some U.S. school districts are still under monitoring and supervision of federal courts.

The Brown decision altered the daily lives of black and white Americans. It laid a foundation of equal rights and opportunities for all. It demonstrated that educational opportunity and achievement are core values and recognized that education can be a great equalizer among people of different races, classes, and backgrounds. It shines as a beacon to all Americans and to the rest of the world, demonstrating that the ideals in the Declaration of Independence and the tenets of the United States Constitution will be universally applied to all citizens.

The landmark case Brown v. Board of Education was the result of the hard work of many people, including the following Topeka plaintiffs, who began their challenge in the U.S. District Court in 1951:

Darlene Brown
Lena M. Carper
Sadie Emmanuel
Marguerite Emerson
Shirla Fleming
Mrs. Andrew (Zelma) Henderson
Shirley Hodison
Mrs. Richard (Maude) Lawton
Alma Lewis
Iona Richardson
Vivian Scales
Lucinda Todd

The Kansas Historical Society partnered with the Brown Foundation to conduct oral history interviews related to the landmark civil rights Supreme Court case. A few of the interview transcripts are available on Kansas Memory but many more are not yet online. Check out the finding aid for a listing of all of the interviews.

Entry: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

Author: Kansas Historical Society

Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history.

Date Created: June 2003

Date Modified: January 2019

The author of this article is solely responsible for its content.

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On May 17, 1954, by unanimous vote, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that "separate but equal" education facilities are "inherently unequal," and that segregation in the schools is, therefore, unconstitutional. The landmark case, known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, involved a Kansas statute permitting racial segregation in some of the state's elementary schools.

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The community that Briggs lived in has asked the town to provide busses for the black children just like they did for the white children. Their request was ignored and the town decided to file a lawsuit.  With the court denying the plaintiffs' request to abolish school segregation. Instead, they ordered the school board to begin equalization of the schools. This was essentially schools built in the 1950s for African-American children in an effort to off integration

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The Briggs case was named for Harry Briggs, one of twenty parents who brought suit against R.W. Elliott, the president of the school board for Clarendon County, South Carolina. Initially, parents had only asked the county to provide school buses for the black students as they did for whites. When their petitions were ignored, they filed a suit challenging segregation itself. Reverend J. A. DeLaine, a school principal, was instrumental in recruiting the parent plaintiffs and enlisting the help of the NAACP. Thurgood Marshall, lead counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Inc., and Harold Boulware, a local lawyer, filed Briggs v. Elliott in the fall of 1950.

A three-judge panel at the U.S. District Court was presented with substantial psychological evidence and expert testimony presented on African American school conditions. The court denied the plaintiffs' request to abolish school segregation. Instead, they ordered the school board to begin equalization of the schools. In a lone dissenting opinion, Judge Julius Waring adamantly opposed segregation in public education. Facing retaliation from irate segregationists, Waring left the state soon after. J.A. DeLaine and Harry Briggs also lost their jobs as a result of their involvement with the case.

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Briggs v. Elliott - Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)

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The Briggs case was named for Harry Briggs, one of twenty parents who brought suit against R.W. Elliott, the president of the school board for Clarendon County, South Carolina. Initially, parents had only asked the county to provide school buses for the black students as they did for whites.

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Black parents were very unhappy with the inadequate conditions in schools reserved for their African American children. The Belton v Gebhart case was actually the first case in which the lower court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. Belton's parents were unhappy that they had to send their children to a run-down segregated high school in Wilmington rather than a school in the community close to home. Thankfully, the Chancellor ruled that the plaintiffs were being denied equal protection of the law and ordered that the eleven children involved be immediately admitted to the white school.

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There were two separate cases in Delaware, but the issues were the same. Black families were frustrated with the inequitable conditions in schools reserved for African American children. Belton v. Gebhart was brought by parents in Claymont, who were forced to send their children to a run-down segregated high school in Wilmington rather than a school in the community. Bulah v. Gebhart was brought by Sarah Bulah, a parent who had made several attempts to convince the Delaware Department of Public Instruction to provide bus transportation for black children in the town of Hockessin. Particularly galling was the fact that a bus for white children passed her house twice a day, but would not pick up her daughter.

The parents sought representation from Louis Redding, a local lawyer who was the state's first black attorney. He suggested that they petition their all-white neighborhood schools on behalf of their children. The children were denied admission and in 1951, the cases Belton v. Gebhart and Bulah v. Gebhart were filed. At the state's request the cases were heard at the Delaware Court of Chancery rather than the U.S. District Court. Jack Greenberg from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. assisted Redding with the case.

In a groundbreaking decision, the Chancellor ruled that the plaintiffs were being denied equal protection of the law and ordered that the eleven children involved be immediately admitted to the white school. The board of education, however, appealed the decison. Delaware was the only case of the five that achieved relief for the plaintiffs at the state level. The decision did not strike down Delaware's segregation law.

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Belton (Bulah) v. Gebhart - Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)

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There were two separate cases in Delaware, but the issues were the same. Black families were frustrated with the inequitable conditions in schools reserved for African American children. Belton v. Gebhart was brought by parents in Claymont, who were forced to send their children to a run-down segregated high school in Wilmington rather than a school in the community.

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This case is based off segregation of students in public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, because separate facilities are inherently unequal. Moton High-School was very run down to the point it was almost unsafe. It was not a nice school like the white children got to attend. Students fought for a new building with proper plumbing. There was no gymnasium or cafeteria and there was only outdoor restrooms... Parents requested improvement and of course were denied until 1951. Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill from the NAACP filed lawsuit on behalf of the students. County officials ultimately defied the Supreme Court ruling and closed public schools for five years between 1959 and 1964. The Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors reopened and desegregated its public schools in 1964.

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In April 1951, Barbara Rose Johns, a Moton High School student in Farmville, Va., organized a two-week-long student strike to protest poor school conditions.

Hundreds of students took part in the fight for a new building with indoor plumbing to replace the old school. Moton lacked a gymnasium, cafeteria, infirmary and teachers' restrooms. Student overflow resided in an old school bus and three buildings covered in tar paper. Parents had repeatedly requested improvements from the school board to no avail.

Activism was in Johns's blood - her uncle was T. Vernon Johns, the predecessor to Martin Luther King, Jr. as minister of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. T. Vernon Johns's wife was also a former teacher at Robert Moton High School.

Meanwhile, Johns and classmate Carrie Stokes sought legal counsel from the NAACP in Richmond. In May 1951, Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill from the NAACP filed suit on behalf of 117 students. When the case was filed, it did not carry the name of Barbara Johns as its lead plaintiff. It was by happenstance that the first student listed was a ninth-grade girl, Dorothy Davis, the daughter of a local farmer. The Virginia case was filed as Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County.

Interview: John Arthur Stokes

Interview: Joan Johns Cobbs

The plaintiffs sought to overturn the state law mandating segregated schools in Virginia. A three-judge district court panel unanimously rejected the students' request stating, "We have found no hurt or harm to either race." Attorneys for the NAACP filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. Their case would eventually be argued with appeals from Delaware, Kansas, South Carolina and Washington, D.C., all of which became part of the court's unanimous ruling as Brown et al. v. the Board of Education of Topeka (Kansas), et al., in which the court ordered desegregation.

County officials ultimately defied the Supreme Court ruling and closed public schools for five years between 1959 and 1964. In another action against the county school board, the courts ordered the district to reopen and desegregate its public schools. This ruling was met with international media attention and the threat of federal enforcement. The Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors reopened and desegregated its public schools in 1964.

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Hundreds of students took part in the fight for a new building with indoor plumbing to replace the old school. Moton lacked a gymnasium, cafeteria, infirmary and teachers' restrooms. Student overflow resided in an old school bus and three buildings covered in tar paper. Parents had repeatedly requested improvements from the school board to no avail.

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September 11, 1950, Gardner Bishop, Nicholas Stabile and other parents  attempted to get eleven African-American students (including the case's plaintiff, Spottswood Bolling) admitted to the school, but were refused entry by the school's principal. In the case of Sharpe (1954) the Court held that the Constitution prohibits segregated public schools in the District of Columbia.

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347 U.S. 497

74 S.Ct. 693

98 L.Ed. 884

BOLLING et al.
v.
SHARPE et al.

No. 8.

Messrs.

George E. C. Hayes, James M. Nabrit, Washington, D.C., for petitioners.

Mr. Milton D. Korman, Washington, D.C., for respondents.

Mr. Chief Justice WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case challenges the validity of segregation in the public schools of the District of Columbia. The petitioners, minors of the Negro race, allege that such segregation deprives them of due process of law under the Fifth Amendment. They were refused admission to a public school attended by white children solely because of their race. They sought the aid of the District Court for the District of Columbia in obtaining admission. That court dismissed their complaint. The Court granted a writ of certiorari before judgment in the Court of Appeals because of the importance of the constitutional question presented. 344 U.S. 873, 73 S.Ct. 173, 97 L.Ed. 676.

We have this day held that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the states from maintaining racially segregated public schools. 1 The legal problem in the District of Columbia is somewhat different, however. The Fifth Amendment, which is applicable in the District of Columbia, does not contain an equal protection clause as does the Fourteenth Amendment which applies only to the states. But the concepts of equal protection and due process, both stemming from our American ideal of fairness, are not mutually exclusive. The 'equal protection of the laws' is a more explicit safeguard of prohibited unfairness than 'due process of law,' and, therefore, we do not imply that the two are always interchangeable phrases. But, as this Court has recognized, discrimination may be so unjustifiable as to be violative of due process. 2

Classifications based solely upon race must be scrutinized with particular care, since they are contrary to our traditions and hence constitutionally suspect. 3 As long ago as 1896, this Court declared the principle 'that the constitution of the United States, in its present form, forbids, so far as civil and political rights are concerned, discrimination by the general government, or by the states, against any citizen because of his race.' 4 And in Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60, 38 S.Ct. 16, 62 L.Ed. 149, the Court held that a statute which limited the right of a property owner to convey his property to a person of another race was, as an unreasonable discrimination, a denial of due process of law.

Although the Court has not assumed to define 'liberty' with any great precision, that term is not confined to mere freedom from bodily restraint. Liberty under law extends to the full range of conduct which the individual is free to pursue, and it cannot be restricted except for a proper governmental objective. Segregation in public education is not reasonably related to any proper governmental objective, and thus it imposes on Negro children of the District of Columbia a burden that constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of their liberty in violation of the Due Process Clause.

In view of our decision that the Constitution prohibits the states from maintaining racially segregated public schools, it would be unthinkable that the same Constitution would impose a lesser duty on the Federal Government. 5 We hold that racial segregation in the public schools of the District of Columbia is a denial of the due process of law guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

For the reasons set out in Brown v. Board of Education, this case will be restored to the docket for reargument on Questions 4 and 5 previously propounded by the Court. 345 U.S. 972, 73 S.Ct. 1114, 97 L.Ed. 1388.

It is so ordered.

Case restored to docket for reargument on question of appropriate decree.

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347 U.S. 497 74 S.Ct. 693 98 L.Ed. 884 BOLLING et al.v.SHARPE et al. No. 8. Messrs. George E. C. Hayes, James M. Nabrit, Washington, D.C., for petitioners. Mr. Milton D. Korman, Washington, D.C., for respondents. Mr. Chief Justice WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.

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On Sept. 12, 1958, Gov. Orval Faubus closed all Little Rock, Arkansas public high schools for one year. Segregation was too large of an issue for the government to have schools open. If one race couldn't go to school, the no one could. Yet this soon after stopped because during this year, ninety-three percent of white students and fifty percent of the Black students gained access to some form of alternative schooling. Faubus’s action not only locked students from their classrooms but locked 177 teachers and administrators in the schools.

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On Sept. 12, 1958, Gov. Orval Faubus closed all Little Rock, Arkansas public high schools for one year rather than allow integration to continue, leaving 3,665 Black and white students without access to public education. During this year, ninety-three percent of white students and fifty percent of the Black students gained access to some form of alternative schooling.

The Encyclopedia of Arkansas explains,

Faubus's action not only locked students from their classrooms but locked 177 teachers and administrators in the schools, where they had to fulfill their contractual obligations and appear for work, despite the empty classes.

The Lost Year was one of the most peculiar situations in Arkansas history. High school teachers worked in empty classrooms. A private school corporation formed to lease public school buildings and hire public school teachers, but federal courts prevented this. The school district experimented for a few weeks with television teaching by fifteen white teachers on the three commercial television stations. Soon, private schools, aside from the three Catholic parochial schools that already existed, opened to accommodate displaced white students. No private schools for black students emerged.

The Lost Year continued with its peculiarities. . . . The Arkansas General Assembly targeted the NAACP (Act 115) and public school teachers (Act 10) with threatening legislation. The latter required teachers and all public employees to sign affidavits listing all organizations to which they belonged and/or paid dues, while the former immediately fired any teacher or state employee who was a member of the NAACP. ...Though no academic work was conducted in public high schools in 1958-59, high school football games continued for the season by order of the governor.

. . . Throughout the Lost Year, several groups organized either to support closed schools or to open them. Among those who worked tirelessly for the latter cause was a large group of white, upper-class women called the Women's Emergency Committee to Open our Schools (WEC). They organized voter registration, promoted the election of moderates to the legislature and the school board, and worked with others after the teacher purge. The Capital Citizens Council (CCC) and the Mothers League of Central High supported segregation. The purge of forty-four teachers on May 5, 1959, brought voters from both sides of the spectrum to organize a recall of either segregationists or moderates from the Little Rock School Board. This twenty-day campaign was led by two hastily formed groups: the Committee to Retain Our Segregated Schools (CROSS) and a group called STOP (which stood for " Stop This Outrageous Purge"), which worked with the WEC. The Lost Year ended with a recall of three segregationist members of the Little Rock School Board on May 25, 1959. Voters in Little Rock, after a year of closed public high schools and after the firing of teachers, were finally willing to accept limited desegregation. Read in full.

Visit the Lost Year website to learn about a film and book based on the history of that year. It is a collaborative project of filmmaker Sandra Hubbard and University of Central Arkansas professor of history Dr. Sondra Gordy. The film can be streamed online.

Charles Mingus wrote a song about Faubus titled Original Faubus Fables. Find related lessons and other teaching resources below.

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Sept. 12, 1958: Little Rock Public Schools Closed - Zinn Education Project

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On Sept. 12, 1958, Gov. Orval Faubus closed all Little Rock, Arkansas public high schools for one year rather than allow integration to continue, leaving 3,665 Black and white students without access to public education. During this year, ninety-three percent of white students and fifty percent of the Black students gained access to some form of alternative schooling.

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“Little Rock Nine" were the first African American students to desegregate Little Rock Central High School. This was a big thing in their generation because schools were still deeply segregated. Today schools are open to children of all color and or disabilities. This issue is a major part of history because we want to be able to prevent this from happening again in the future. These students were brave enough to stand up for what they believed in and it changed schools around the world.

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National Museum of African American History and Culture

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In 1954 the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were illegal. The case, Brown v. The Board of Education, has become iconic for Americans because it marked the formal beginning of the end of segregation.

But the gears of change grind slowly. It wasn't until September 1957 when nine teens would become symbols, much like the landmark decision we know as Brown v. The Board of Education, of all that was in store for our nation in the years to come.

The "Little Rock Nine," as the nine teens came to be known, were to be the first African American students to enter Little Rock's Central High School. Three years earlier, following the Supreme Court ruling, the Little Rock school board pledged to voluntarily desegregate its schools. This idea was explosive for the community and, like much of the South, it was fraught with anger and bitterness.

On September 2, 1957 the night prior to what was to be the teens' first day in Central High classrooms, Arkansas governor Orval Faubus ordered the state's National Guard to block their entrance. Faubus said it was for the safety of the nine students.

On September 4, just 24 hours after a federal judge ordered the Little Rock Nine to begin attending Central High immediately, a belligerent mob, along with the National Guard, again prevented the teens from entering the school.

Sixteen days later a federal judge ordered the National Guard removed. Once again on September 23, the Little Rock Nine attempted to enter the school. Though escorted by Little Rock police into a side door, another angry crowd gathered and tried to rush into Central High. Fearing for the lives of the nine students, school officials sent the teens home. They did, however, manage to attend classes for about three hours.

Finally, 52 years ago today, on September 25, 1957, following a plea from Little Rock's mayor, Woodrow Mann, President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the National Guard and sent U.S. Army troops to the scene. Personally guarded by soldiers from the National Guard soldiers and the Army's 101st Airborne, the Little Rock Nine began regular class attendance at Central High.

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The "Little Rock Nine," as the nine teens came to be known, were to be the first African American students to enter Little Rock's Central High School. Three years earlier, following the Supreme Court ruling, the Little Rock school board pledged to voluntarily desegregate its schools.

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Little Rock Nine - Definition, Names & Facts - HISTORY

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1) | Oyez

https://www.nps.gov/brvb/learn/historyculture/socarolina.ht
m

https://brown65.the74million.org/davisvprince

https://brown65.the74million.org/beltonvgebhart

https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/little-rock-nine

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/little-rock-schools-closed/#:~:text=On%20Sept.,without%20access%20to%20public%20education.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/347/497

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Two cases in Delaware, Belton v. Gebhart and Bulah v. Gebhart, were consolidated into Belton (Bulah) v. Gebhart when two groups of parents were frustrated with inequitable conditions in black schools.

Belton v. Gebhart came from Claymont, a suburb of Wilmington, Del., where African American parents were frustrated with traveling 20 miles round trip to send their children to Howard High School - the only high school open to black students in the entire state - and simultaneously passing by neighborhood Claymont High School - a spacious, well-maintained all-white public school. Not only was the distance an adverse factor, but class size, incomplete curriculum and teacher qualifications also angered African American parents. Students interested in vocational training courses had to walk several blocks to the run-down Carver Annex, regardless of the weather.

Bulah v. Gebhart came from Hockessin, a rural district in Delaware's New Castle County. Sarah Bulah was a parent who sought to convince the state to provide bus transportation for her adopted black daughter Shirley Barbara. While a bus carrying white children passed her home each day, she had to drive Shirley two miles to an old one-room schoolhouse designated for African American children. She wrote to the department of public instruction and to the governor. Their replies reaffirmed that no bus transportation would be provided because "colored" children could not ride on a bus serving white children.

In 1951, the parents reached out to attorney Louis Redding - the state's first black attorney - for representation. Redding suggested that they petition Claymont High School to admit their children. They were denied. In 1952, in a groundbreaking decision, Chancellor Collins J. Seitz, presiding judge of the Delaware Court of Chancery in Wilmington, directed the immediate admittance of the African American plaintiffs' children into all-white Claymont High School.

Interview: Brigitte Brown

Interview: Joan Anderson

The board of education appealed the decision, and the Delaware Attorney General instructed Claymont schools Superintendent Harvey Stahl to deny admission to the students. Stahl defied his orders and enrolled the students anyway. With that, in 1952, a small group of African American high school students integrated public schools in Delaware prior to the Brown decision.

Although a victory for children of the named plaintiffs, Judge Seitz's decision did not apply broadly throughout Delaware - it only affected the 12 students who were children of the named plaintiffs. So Redding set out to challenge the general notion of racially segregated public schools and developed litigation filed using the names of Sarah Bulah and one of the parents involved in the Claymont case, Ethel Belton. Their cases named the state board of education as the principal defendant, specifically charging the individual board members. The first name among the members was Francis B. Gebhart. The resulting cases were filed as Belton v. Gebhart and Bulah v. Gebhart. The Belton and Bulah cases were consolidated as Belton (Bulah) v. Gebhart to join four other NAACP cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and become part of the May 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.

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Belton v. Gebhart came from Claymont, a suburb of Wilmington, Del., where African American parents were frustrated with traveling 20 miles round trip to send their children to Howard High School - the only high school open to black students in the entire state - and simultaneously passing by neighborhood Claymont High School - a spacious, well-maintained all-white public school.

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Nine ordinary teenagers walked out of their homes and stepped up to desegregate the school system. Little Rock Nine were a group of nine Black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. Trying to attend the school day, they were blocked and refused from going in by the National Guard sent by Governor Faubus.
Schools during this time were tremendously segregated and this group specifically was sick of it. The integration of Little Rock's all-white Central High School was a first time that the federal government's ability to enforce a ruling that said "separate but equal schools were unconstitutional." This all would not of happened if Brown. vs Board did not happen.
Brown. vs. board simply stated that "the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution." Meaning segregation in schools was no longer allowed. There were many cases that led up to the Brown vs. Board case. Cases like; Briggs vs Elliot, Bolling vs. Sharpe, Belton vs Gebhart, and Davis vs Edward County are what led Brown vs. Board to victory.
This had a huge impact on today's schools. It seems bizarre to tell a child that they are not allowed to learn or even enter a school simply because of the color of their skin. It is unfortunate that this happened to the group of nine African American children, but they changed the world for the better. The impact they made was huge and people of color were now able to attend school.