Little Rock Nine

Just some more personal details regarding the desegregation of Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas.

            In 1952, five separate cases regarding the constitutionality of state-sponsored public schools came before the Supreme Court, which bundled the cases under the name Brown v. Board of Education. Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP argued that segregated schools were inherently unequal, which not only caused African American students to feel inferior, but also violated the “equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. With the leadership of Justice Warren, Plessy v. Ferguson was overturned and segregation in public schools was declared unconstitutional.

            In 1955, the Little Rock School Board adopted the Blossom Plan, which outlined the program for desegregation. Integration was scheduled to begin in the fall of 1957 at Central High, and then filter into the lower grades throughout the succeeding six years. However, there was a caveat: students were only allowed to transfer if they came from a school in which their race was a minority, which limited true integration.

            September 4^th, 1957, the Little Rock Nine were confronted with white mobs and the Arkansas State Militia upon trying to enter the school. It was not until September 25^th that the nine returned for a full day of school under the supervision of the National Guard. The nine endured nine months of continuous harassment- even with 101^st Airborne escorts, the students were bullied in restrooms and locker rooms. Minnajean Brown, one of the nine, was expelled from Central High due to retaliation (she poured chili on two white boys and called a girl ‘white trash,’ all power to her).

            Despite all the trauma, the groundbreaking episode ended in a local resolution to close all the Little Rock high schools to avoid further desegregation issues.