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WEDNESDAY • AUGUST 28 • 2013
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A newspaper in education supplement TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Little Rock Nine
After the Brown Decision of the Supreme
Court ordering desegregation in schools, the Little
Rock, Arkansas school board was the first in the
South to announce it would comply. The choice
was made even though Superintendent of Schools
Virgil Blossom felt “the people of Little Rock, a
vast majority of them, were not in favor of integra-
tion as a principle.”
As the school year was about to begin, Jeffer-
son Thomas, one of the Little Rock Nine students
who volunteered and was selected by school
authorities to attend Central High School, asked
Daisy Bates, president of the Arkansas NAACP,
“Is there anything they can do now that they lost
in court? Is there any way they can stop us from
entering Central tomorrow morning?” She re-
plied, “I don’t think so.” Shortly after, a local news
reporter stopped by and asked, “Mrs. Bates, do
you know that National Guardsmen are surround-
ing Central High?”
As the start of the school year approached,
resistance to integration grew rapidly. Arkansas
Governor Orval Faubus addressed the citizens
of Arkansas on TV on Labor Day, September 2,
1957. He told them he had called out the National
Guard to prevent the nine students from entering
Central High because of threats to their lives. He
said he was doing it for their “protection.”
In his infamous, and ill-advised words, he
stated, “Blood will run in the streets” if Negro
students should attempt to enter Central High
School. This contributed to mass hysteria gripping
Little Rock.
On September 14 Gov. Faubus met with
President Eisenhower. Eisenhower refused the
governor’s request to help defy the federal court
order to integrate. He wanted Faubus to change
the mission of the Arkansas Guardsmen to protect
the students, not bar them. Faubus refused and
removed the Guardsmen on September 23, leaving
angry mobs determined to stop the students from
entering.
Pres. Eisenhower felt upholding the Constitu-
tion, and the Supreme Court Brown Decision, was
his duty. After receiving a request for federal assis-
tance from the Mayor of Little Rock, Eisenhower
made the decision to send in federal troops. With
protection from the 101st Airborne Division, the
Little Rock Nine started attending Central High
School on September 25, 1957.
One of the students, Melba Pattillo remem-
bered, “The troops were wonderful…They were disciplined, they
were attentive, they were caring.”
“Inside Central High, day after day, the Little Rock Nine endure
cruel hardship and abuse from the white students—beatings, shov-
ing, jeers, insults, and constant humiliation.” — Veterans of the Civil
Rights Movement.
Despite the abuse, eight of the students would complete the
year, including Ernest Green, who became the first black student
to graduate from Central High. Minniejean Brown was expelled in
January after twice responding to hecklers.
Sadly, Gov. Faubus closed every public school in Little Rock after
the end of the school year rather than continue integration. The
schools remained closed for a year until August 12, 1959 after the
Supreme Court ruled the closing unconstitutional and an “evasive
scheme.”
At that time many Americans agreed with Faubus and didn’t
agree with the Supreme Court upholding integration. In Decem-
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
In January and February of 1957, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Charles K. Steele, Fred L.
Shuttlesworth, and other ministers established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference dedi-
cated to abolishing legalized segregation and ending the disfranchisement of black southerners in
a non-violent manner. Female leaders such as Ella Baker also played key roles in the SCLC. King was
the first president. The SCLC became a major force in organizing the civil rights movement and based
its principles on nonviolence and civil disobedience. According to King, it was essential that the civil
rights movement not sink to the level of the racists and hate-mongers who oppose them: "We must
forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline."
The SCLC was not without controversy, even within the black community. Some black churches
thought their mission was to focus on spiritual needs, not political involvement. They thought direct
action like non-violent protests and boycotts were radical actions and would excite white resistance,
hostility, and violence. The SCLC became one of the most effective Civil Rights organizations in the
South, responsible for some of the most important campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement.
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in front of SCLC
Headquarters in Atlanta, GA
Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus,
Credit: AP
