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Summary:
Plessy v. Ferguson was a significant Supreme Court case in 1896 that established the "separate but equal" doctrine for racial segregation laws. The case involved Homer Plessy challenging Louisiana's Separate Car Act of 1890, which required separate accommodations for white and African American railway passengers. Plessy lost the case, and the "separate but equal" doctrine became a precedent until it was overturned in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954.

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How did Plessy v. Ferguson affect segregation in the United States?

Plessy v. Ferguson, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on May 18, 1896, by a seven-to-one majority (one justice did not participate), advanced the controversial " separate but equal" doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws. Plessy v. Ferguson was the first major inquiry into the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment's (1868) equal-protection clause, which prohibits the states from denying "equal protection of the laws" to any person within their jurisdictions. Although the majority opinion did not contain the phrase "separate but equal," it gave constitutional sanction to laws designed to achieve racial segregation by means of separate and supposedly equal public facilities and services for African Americans and whites. It served as a controlling judicial precedent until it was overturned by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954).

Background

The case originated in 1892 as a challenge to Louisiana's Separate Car Act (1890). The law required that all railroads operating in the state provide "equal but separate accommodations" for white and African American passengers and prohibited passengers from entering accommodations other than those to which they had been assigned on the basis of their race. In 1891 a group of Creole professionals in New Orleans formed the Citizens' Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law. They hired Albion Tourgée, a Reconstruction-era judge and social reformer, as their legal counsel. As plaintiff in the test case the committee chose a person of mixed race in order to support its contention that the law could not be consistently applied, because it failed to define the white and "coloured" races. Homer Plessy, who was seven-eighths white and one-eighth African American, purchased a rail ticket for travel within Louisiana and took a seat in a car reserved for white passengers. (The state Supreme Court had ruled earlier that the law could not be applied to interstate travel.) After refusing to move to a car for African Americans, he was arrested and charged with violating the Separate Car Act. At Plessy's trial in U.S. District Court, Judge John H. Ferguson dismissed his contention that the act was unconstitutional. After the state Supreme Court affirmed the district court's ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, and oral arguments were heard on April 13, 1896. The court rendered its decision one month later, on May 18.

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Plessy v. Ferguson | Summary, Ruling, Background, & Impact

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Plessy v. Ferguson, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on May 18, 1896, by a seven-to-one majority (one justice did not participate), advanced the controversial 'separate but equal' doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws.

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Summary:
Published on April 18, 1903, "The Souls of Black Folk" is a compilation of essays by W. E. B. Du Bois that delves into the experiences of African Americans in the United States. The book addresses a wide range of topics, including the aftermath of slavery, social and political challenges faced by black Americans, and the significance of education and the arts in advancing racial progress. Du Bois introduces the notion of "double consciousness," which describes the inner conflict felt by black individuals living in a society that oppresses them while simultaneously expecting their participation. This seminal work continues to be impactful and significant in comprehending the history of race relations in the US.

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W.E.B. Du Bois

W.E.B. Du Bois said, on the launch of his groundbreaking 1903 treatise The Souls of Black Folk, "for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line"-a prescient statement. Setting out to show to the reader "the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth Century," Du Bois explains the meaning of the emancipation, and its effect, and his views on the role of the leaders of his race.

Bibliographic Record

Contents

HEREIN IS WRITTEN

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The Souls of Black Folk Archives - Collection at Bartleby.com

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W.E.B. Du Bois said, on the launch of his groundbreaking 1903 treatise The Souls of Black Folk, "for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line"-a prescient statement.

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Summary:
The Niagara Movement was founded in 1905, a group of Black intellectuals led by W.E.B. Du Bois, to call for civil and political rights for African Americans. They rejected Booker T. Washington's accommodationist stance, which focused on learning skills such as farming and carpentry rather than political and legal means. The Niagara Movement adopted a constitution and by-laws and drafted a “Declaration of Principles” that dedicated the group to fighting for political and social equality for African Americans. In 1909, the NAACP was founded, and most of the Niagara Movement's members continued the fight for civil and political rights for African Americans with the NAACP.

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In 1905, a group of prominent Black intellectuals led by W.E.B. Du Bois met in Erie, Ontario, near Niagara Falls, to form an organization calling for civil and political rights for African Americans. With its comparatively aggressive approach to combating racial discrimination and segregation, the Niagara Movement served as a forerunner to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the civil rights movement.

Founding of the Niagara Movement

As the 20th century began, the promises of the 14th and 15th Amendments-civil rights for African Americans-had fallen well short. Reconstruction had failed, and the Supreme Court had sanctioned Jim Crow segregationist policies in Plessy v. Ferguson(1896).

Against this background of widespread racial discrimination and segregation, Booker T. Washington became one of the era's most influential Black leaders. He argued that Black people should advance themselves through learning skills such as farming and carpentry, rather than look to legal and political means to advance as a group. "We shall not agitate for political or social equality," Washington declared in 1895, in a speech known as the Atlanta Compromise. "Living separately, yet working together, both races will determine the future of our beloved South."

In 1905, Du Bois, then a professor at Atlanta University, and William Monroe Trotter, founder of the activist newspaper the Boston Guardian, issued a call to a select group of Black men who opposed Washington's accommodationist stance. In response to their call, 29 men from 14 states gathered in Buffalo, New York that summer. The group then headed across the border to Canada, meeting at the Erie Beach Hotel in Ontario, near Niagara Falls, from July 11-14, 1905.

Historians have long assumed that Du Bois' group chose the Erie Beach meeting site after being refused accommodation in Buffalo due to racial discrimination. But more recent research by local scholars found that hotel managers in Buffalo did in fact comply with anti-discrimination laws at the time, making this explanation unlikely. According to Du Bois' own writings at the time, the group sought a "quiet place outside the city near the water where we can be to ourselves, hold conferences together" and have access to recreation; the Erie Beach Hotel apparently met these requirements.

Goals and Growth of the Movement

At their initial meeting, the founding members of the Niagara Movement adopted a constitution and by-laws and drafted a "Declaration of Principles" that dedicated the group to fighting for political and social equality for African Americans. "We refuse to allow the impression to remain that the Negro-American assents to inferiority, is submissive under oppression and apologetic before insults," the declaration read in part. "Persistent manly agitation is the way to liberty, and toward this goal the Niagara Movement has started and asks the cooperation of all men of all races."

By 1906, the Niagara Movement had grown to some 170 members in 34 states. That August, the organization held its first public meeting in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, on the campus of Storer College. Its members chose the meeting site for its historical significance as the site of John Brown 's anti-slavery raid in 1859; Storer was also founded as a Baptist school with a mission to educate formerly enslaved people.

Despite some state-level success, including lobbying against the legalization of segregated railroad cars in Massachusetts, the Niagara Movement failed to gain much national momentum. The group suffered from limited financial resources and determined opposition from Washington and his supporters, as well as internal disagreement between Du Bois and Trotter as to whether to admit women. Trotter, who opposed letting women join the movement, left by 1908 to found his own organization, the Negro-American Political League.

End of the Niagara Movement and Founding of the NAACP

Though a 1907 meeting at Faneuil Hall in Boston attracted as many as 800 members, support for the Niagara Movement soon began to dwindle. Then, in the wake of a major race riot in Springfield, Illinois, in August 1908, Du Bois joined other prominent activists, including Mary White Ovington, in calling for a new civil rights organization with both Black and white members.

The result was the NAACP, founded in February 1909 in New York City. Though the Niagara Movement held its final meeting in 1908, and formally disbanded in 1911, the majority of its members would continue the fight for civil and political rights for African Americans with the NAACP.
READ MORE: Black History Milestones: A Timeline
Sources

Christensen, Stephanie, Niagara Movement (1905-1909). BlackPast.org. December 16, 2007.

Manly, Howard, "Before the NAACP, the Niagara Movement fought for equal rights, human brotherhood." Bay State Banner. September 14, 2011.

Van Ness, Cynthia, "Buffalo Hotels and the Niagara Movement: New Evidence Refutes an Old Legend. Western New York Heritage. Vol. 13 No. 4, Winter 2011.

Niagara's Declaration of Principles, 1905. Yale Macmillan Center, Yale University.

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In 1905, a group of prominent Black intellectuals led by W.E.B. Du Bois met in Erie, Ontario, near Niagara Falls, to form an organization calling for civil and political rights for African Americans. With its comparatively aggressive approach to combating racial discrimination and segregation, the Niagara Movement served as a forerunner to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the civil rights movement.

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Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) (1942)

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Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) (1942)

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Summary:
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded in 1942 by Black and white students inspired by Gandhi's protest strategies of nonviolence and civil disobedience. They played a leading role in sit-ins, picket lines, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Freedom Rides, and the 1963 March on Washington. CORE had a strict devotion to interracial membership, with a goal of ending racial segregation in America through nonviolent campaigns. It became a Black separatist and Black Power organization in 1966.

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Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s protest strategies of nonviolence and civil disobedience, in 1942 a group of Black and white students in Chicago founded the

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President Harry Truman ends Segregation (1948)

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President Harry Truman ends Segregation (1948)

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Summary:
In 1948, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which called for equal treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed forces regardless of their race, color, religion or national origin. This order was a significant step towards desegregating the military and was influenced by a combination of factors, including pressure from civil rights leaders, Truman's personal beliefs, and the changing political landscape in the post-war period. Truman's action was part of a broader movement towards desegregation and civil rights, which eventually led to the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

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When President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948, calling for the desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces, he repudiated 170 years of officially sanctioned discrimination. Since the American Revolution, African Americans had served in the military, but almost always separately from white soldiers-and usually in menial roles.

A major achievement of the post-war civil rights movement -and of Truman's presidency-the event marked the first time a U.S. commander in chief had used an executive order to implement a civil rights policy. It became a crucial step toward inspiring other parts of American society to accept desegregation.

Truman's journey to signing 9981 is the story, in part, of heeding pressure from Black civil rights leaders and recognizing, pragmatically, the importance of the Black vote to his political fortunes. But it's also the story of his overcoming his own deeply embedded racial prejudices.

Truman's White Supremacist Roots

In 1911, when Truman was a 27-year-old corporal in the Missouri National Guard, he wrote to his future wife, Bess Wallace: "I think one man is just as good as another so long as he's honest and decent and not a nigger or a Chinaman... I am strongly of the opinion that negros (sic) ought to be in Africa, yellow men in Asia and white men in Europe and America."

Truman came by these beliefs from his upbringing in Missouri, where his grandparents had owned slaves and where 60 African Americans were lynched between 1877 and 1950, the second-highest number of any state over that period outside the Deep South.

He grew up in a home that openly reviled abolitionism, Reconstruction and Abraham Lincoln. "Truman literally learned at his mother's knee to share the South's view of the War Between the States," wrote William E. Leuchtenburg, a professor emeritus of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in 1991. "He also acquired an abiding belief in white supremacy."

After the Lynchings of Black Veterans, Truman Took Action

Yet when the beatings and murders of recently returned African American World War II veterans in the South captured national attention, Truman, who assumed the presidency after Franklin Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, was moved to act.

"My stomach turned over when I learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of army trucks in Mississippi and beaten," Truman said. "Whatever my inclinations as a native of Missouri might have been, as president I know this is bad. I shall fight to end evils like this."

In response to the lynchings, and under pressure from Black civil rights groups, Truman formed the President's Committee on Civil Rights in late 1946. It produced a report, To Secure These Rights, which condemned all forms of segregation and asked for an immediate end to discrimination and segregation in all branches of the armed services.

In 1947, Truman became the first president to address the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In his speech at the Lincoln Memorial, Truman said, "It is my deep conviction that we have reached a turning point in the long history of our country's efforts to guarantee freedom and equality to all of our citizens."

Truman Realized He Needs the Black Vote

Throughout his life, Truman made racist statements to his intimates and in private correspondence and likely never fully abandoned the attitudes of his youth. But he was an astute politician who understood the importance of the Black vote to his political fortunes. In 1940, as a U.S. Senator, he told the National Colored Democratic Association, "The Negroes' flag is our flag, and he stands ready, just as we do, to defend it against all foes from within and without."

Truman's sharpening views on civil rights during his first term as president divided the Democratic Party. Conservative Southern Democrats from South Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama protested the party's civil rights plank, walking out of the 1948 Democratic National Convention. Without the white Southern vote, Truman's chances in the general election against Republican nominee Thomas Dewey dimmed considerably.

Despite the Dixiecrat defections, Truman's aides convinced him that a winning coalition included Black voters, whose leaders saw the integration of the armed forces as a major election issue. Months before the election, 20 African American organizations, including the NAACP and the National Urban League, issued a "Declaration of Negro Voters," which included desegregating the armed forces among its demands.

In the last days of the election, Truman made a campaign appearance in Harlem, marking the first time a U.S. president had visited the symbolic capital of Black America. Truman was lured there by Anna Arnold Hedgeman, an African American political operative who spearheaded his campaign's Black outreach. According to Hedgeman's biographer, Jennifer Scanlon, "Truman won the race, in a narrow margin nationally, thanks in part to the Black electorate and to Hedgeman."

African American Leaders Dialed Up the Pressure

On March 22, 1948, Truman met with Black leaders to discuss segregation. "I can tell you the mood among Negroes of this country is that they will never bear arms again until all forms of bias and discrimination are abolished," A. Phillip Randolph, the pioneering union organizer and civil rights leader, told the president.

At a hearing nine days later before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Randolph said, "I personally will advise Negroes to refuse to fight as slaves for a democracy they cannot possess and cannot enjoy."

In a celebrated case taken up by the American Civil Liberties Union, Winfrid Lynn, a Black landscape gardener from New York, went to jail after he told his local draft board he would "not be compelled to serve in a unit undemocratically selected as a Negro."

That June, Randolph informed President Truman that if he didn't issue an executive order ending segregation in the armed forces, African Americans would resist the draft.

A month later, with an election looming and under intense pressure from civil rights leaders, Truman signed Executive Order 9981-and created the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces, popularly known as the Fahy Committee, to oversee the process.

Gradual Integration-and a Lasting Legacy

To achieve full integration, Truman needed cooperation from the military's four branches. "I want the job done," Truman told the committee in early 1949, "and I want it done in a way so that everyone will be happy to cooperate to get it done."

For its part, the Army balked. "The Army is not an instrument for social evolution," said Kenneth Royall, the Secretary of the Army, who expressed concern about the order's adverse effect on enlistments, reenlistments and soldier morale nationwide-but especially in the South.

Truman, who would settle for nothing less than full desegregation, forced Royall into retirement after he refused to comply with the order.

It took six years to desegregate America's armed forces. In late 1954, the deactivation of the 94 th Engineer Battalion, the Army's last all-Black unit, completed the process. Executive Order 9981 remains one of the crowning achievements of Truman's eight years in office, a bold decision that pitted him against the southern wing of his party on this and other civil rights issues. But as postwar American society evolved, the armed forces became an important model for desegregation and equal opportunities for African Americans.

In 1998, on the 50th anniversary of Executive Order 9981, General Colin Powell, who later became America's first Black secretary of state, spoke about the impact of Truman's decision on his life: "The military was the only institution in all of America-because of Harry Truman-where a young Black kid, now 21 years old, could dream the dream he dared not think about at age 11. It was the one place where the only thing that counted was courage, where the color of your guts and the color of your blood was more important than the color of your skin."

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Why Harry Truman Ended Segregation in the US Military in 1948 | HISTORY

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Executive Order 9981, one of Truman's most important achievements, became a major catalyst for the civil rights movement.

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 Brown v. Board of Education (May 17, 1954)

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 Brown v. Board of Education (May 17, 1954)

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Summary:
In the Brown v. Board of Education case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, as it violated the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. This decision stated that separate facilities for white and African American students were inherently unequal. The ruling only applied to public schools but implied that segregation was not permissible in other public facilities. This case started in Topeka, Kansas, when the NAACP filed a class-action lawsuit claiming that segregation was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision was handed down on May 17, 1954, and it helped inspire the civil rights movement of the late 1950s and ’60s.

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Brown v. Board of Education | Case, 1954, Definition, Decision, Facts, & Impact

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Brown v. Board of Education, case in which, on May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously (9–0) that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. It was one of the most important cases in the Court’s history, and it helped inspire the American civil rights movement of the late 1950s and ’60s.

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Summary:
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine Black students who enrolled in the formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. The enrollment was a test of the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. On the first day of classes, Governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the students' entry, but President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort them into the school later that month. The event drew national attention to the civil rights movement. The nine students, who became famous as the Little Rock Nine, were Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Patillo, Gloria Ray, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas, and Carlotta Walls.

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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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Desegregation is the process of ending racial segregation. It is an important part of American history, as it marked the end of the systematic oppression and discrimination of Black people in the United States. This essay will explore the history of desegregation, including key court cases, movements, and figures that played a crucial role in the fight against segregation.

The Plessy v. Ferguson case, decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1896, was a landmark case that upheld the "separate but equal" doctrine, allowing for racial segregation in public facilities. The case involved Homer Plessy, a Black man who refused to sit in a "Jim Crow" car on a train in Louisiana. The Supreme Court's ruling in this case set the stage for decades of segregation and discrimination against Black people in the United States.

However, the fight against segregation continued. In 1903, W. E. B. Du Bois published his seminal work, "The Souls of Black Folk," in which he argued for equal rights and opportunities for Black people. Du Bois wrote, "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line." His book became a rallying cry for the Civil Rights Movement and inspired many activists to fight for desegregation.

In 1905, the Niagara Movement was founded by Du Bois and other Black leaders to advocate for civil rights and to fight against segregation. The movement held annual meetings and was a precursor to the modern Civil Rights Movement.

In 1942, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded by a group of activists, including James Farmer and George Houser. The organization was committed to nonviolent direct action and played a significant role in the desegregation of public facilities, transportation, and schools.

President Harry Truman also played a crucial role in ending segregation. In 1948, he signed Executive Order 9981, which desegregated the armed forces. Truman stated, "There shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin."

However, it was the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954 that was a turning point in the fight against segregation. The case involved a group of Black parents who sued the Topeka, Kansas school board for segregating their children in public schools. In the landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the court's opinion, "In the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

Despite this ruling, many schools continued to resist desegregation. In 1957, nine Black students, known as the Little Rock Nine, attempted to integrate Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. Governor Orval Faubus ordered the National Guard to prevent the students from entering the school, but President Dwight Eisenhower intervened and sent federal troops to escort the students to class.

In conclusion, desegregation was a long and difficult process that required the courage and persistence of many individuals and organizations. Through court cases, activism, and political leadership, segregation was eventually overturned and paved the way for greater equality and justice for Black people in the United States.

Works Cited:

Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Dover Publications, 1994.

Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty!: An American History. 5th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2017.

Kluger, Richard. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality. New York: Vintage Books, 2004.