Lessons from the "Little Rock Nine"

1333 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Brown vs board education effects on civil rights

Motivators and movers – where would the world be without these people? It is these beings that cause belief to become action and compel the masses to move through their example, sometimes unknowingly. In 1957, nine young African-Americans voluntarily chose to desegregate Little Rock Central High and break free of the black-white mold that society had made. Those young students became known as the Little Rock Nine - hated by those unlike them, terrorized by schoolmates and even ostracized by their people. The moment these young African-Americans enrolled into Central High, they became warriors for equality facing the battlefield of racism. It was their determination that facilitated breaking down the walls of segregation. The stand taken by the Little Rock Nine some fifty years ago did not only serve as a catalyst to the civil rights movements of America, but also as an example to all, both then and now.

In the 1950s, segregation between blacks and whites was commonplace in Little Rock. It was uncommon for them to share facilities such as grocery stores, restaurants, and bathrooms. Racial makeup influenced almost every aspect of life and was considered legal due to the “separate but legal” law, Plessy vs. Ferguson. Terrence Roberts, one of the nine, recalls walking into an all-white restaurant at the age of thirteen and receiving such hostile, unwelcoming looks for simply sitting down while waiting for his food. Roberts says that was the day “I woke up…and could not, in good conscious, follow the rules of segregation”(Roberts, 2007). Two years later, the opportunity came for Roberts and the other nine to close the gap segregation had opened between the races through the Supreme Court decision of Brown vs. the Board of Education...

... middle of paper ...

...erica must continue to move forward down the long path ahead.

Works Cited

Beals, MPB. (1995). Warriors don't cry. New York, NY: Simon Pulse.

Armed troops turn away nine negroes at central high school. (1957, September 04). Arkansas Democrat, p. 1.

Little Rock Nine. Wikipedia. Retrieved April 18, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rock_Nine

Roberts, T.J. (n.d.). A memoir by one of the little rock nine. Retrieved from http://www.butlercenter.org/publication/books/lessonsfrom/questions.html

Roberts, T.J. . (Photographer). (2007). Terrence roberts at the 2007 new england benefit dinner . [Web].Retrieved from http://www.facinghistory.org/video/terrence-roberts-2007-new-england- benefit-di

CBS News Staff, Initials. (Photographer). (1957). Little rock-1957 pictures. [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-500142_162-3289400.html

Show More
Related

  • Civil Rights Dbq

    1239 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) ‘equal but separate’ decision robbed it of its meaning and confirmed this wasn’t the case as the court indicated this ruling did not violate black citizenship and did not imply superior and inferior treatment ,but it indeed did as it openly permitted racial discrimination in a landmark decision of a 8-1 majority ruling, it being said was controversial, as white schools and facilities received near to more than double funding than black facilities negatively contradicted the movement previous efforts on equality and maintaining that oppression on

    Read More

  • Brown V. Board Of Education

    1492 Words  | 3 Pages

    The case started with a third-grader named Linda Brown. She was a black girl who lived just seen blocks away from an elementary school for white children. Despite living so close to that particular school, Linda had to walk more than a mile, and through a dangerous railroad switchyard, to get to the black elementary school in which she was enrolled. Oliver Brown, Linda's father tried to get Linda switched to the white school, but the principal of that school refuse to enroll her. After being told that his daughter could not attend the school that was closer to their home and that would be safer for Linda to get to and from, Mr. Brown went to the NAACP for help, and as it turned out, the NAACP had been looking for a case with strong enough merits that it could challenge the issue of segregation in pubic schools. The NAACP found other parents to join the suit and it then filed an injunction seeking to end segregation in the public schools in Kansas (Knappman, 1994, pg 466).

    Read More

  • The Long Shadow of Little Rock: The Story of Elizabeth Eckford

    610 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1950's America, there was a uprising that would sculpt the world into the place we now inhabit. The particular event in question is one concerning the black communities plight in 1950's America, with names such such as Rosa Parks, Emmett Till and (most importantly), Elizabeth Eckford Heading the list of names who took a stand, and, in turn, made America the place it is today. As the years went by, details of the many riots the segregation incurred were documented. The focus of this essay will be on a particular documentation titled 'The Long Shadow of Little Rock', a book published in 1962 on what happened to Elizabeth Eckford in Little Rock, Arkansas. However, just what can we learn from this Document?

    Read More

  • The Little Rock Nine and Their History

    1249 Words  | 3 Pages

    In May of 1954, the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case had declared the racial segregation of American public schools unconstitutional. The Supreme Court had called for the integration of schools, so that students of any race could attend any school without the concern of the “white-only” labels. The public school system of Little Rock, Arkansas agreed to comply with this new desegregated system, and by a year had a plan to integrate the students within all the public schools of Little Rock. By 1957, nine students had been selected by the Nation Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), chosen according to their outstanding grades and excellent attendance, and had been enrolled in the now-integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. But, the Little Rock Nine, consisting of Jefferson Thomas, Thelma Mothershed, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Elizabeth Eckford, Minnijean Brown, Ernest Green, Melba Pattillo Beals, Gloria Ray Karlmark, and Terrence Roberts, faced the angered, white segregationist students and adults upon their enrollment at Central High School. Thus began the true test; that of bravery of the students and that of the ethics of the white community.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Freedom's Children

    1169 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Stuff they had in seventh grade and eighth grades, we were just getting as junior and seniors in black school” Teachers would either not have the materials to be able to teach or intentionally teach slow so the African American kids would have a more difficult time in life. At this time in the south schools were kept separate. Schools up north had already integrated prior because racism was not as much a problem as it was in the south. Little Rock was one of the first schools in Alabama to integrate black and whites into the same school. Little Rock admitted nine African American students giving it the name “The Little Rock Nine”. After the federal law was passed by the supreme court in 1964 allowing black students to go to the school of their choice, nothing happened for three long years. The governor of Alabama (Orval Faubus) employed the national guard to blockade the school only admitted white students. This went on until President Eisenhower deployed the 101st Airborne Division. The national guard backed off and the nine students would attend school. In the beginning it was smooth sailing. People for the most part would not pick on the blacks. This was only because an armed guard would accompany them to and from classes. As time went on there would be less and less security. People would begin to pick on the kid. Most of the time it was

    Read More

  • Jim Crow Law Essay

    759 Words  | 2 Pages

    Does the name Jim Crow ring a bell? Neither singer nor actor, but actually the name for the Separate but Equal (Jim Crow) Laws of the 1900s. Separate but Equal Laws stated that businesses and public places had to have separate, but equal, facilities for minorities and Caucasian people. Unfortunately, they usually had different levels of maintenance or quality. Lasting hatred from the civil war, and anger towards minorities because they took jobs in the north probably set the foundation for these laws, but it has become difficult to prove. In this essay, I will explain how the Separate but Equal Laws of twentieth century America crippled minorities of that time period forever.

    Read More

  • The Success of The Civil Rights Movement in the 1950's

    840 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...t there was no real haste to desegregate schools, in Brown II the Supreme Court declared that desegregation should occur ‘with all deliberate speed’, but the events at Little Rock in 1957 proved that the whites were still persisting in segregation.

    Read More

  • Racism in American Schools

    778 Words  | 2 Pages

    "Little Rock Nine: Photos of a Civil Rights Triumph in Arkansas, 1957 | LIFE | TIME.com."

    Read More

  • Brown v Board of Education

    2329 Words  | 5 Pages

    The request for an injunction pushed the court to make a difficult decision. On one hand, the judges agreed with the Browns; saying that: “Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children...A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn” (The National Center For Public Research). On the other hand, the precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson allowed separate but equal school systems for blacks and whites, and no Supreme Court ruling had overturned Plessy yet. Be...

    Read More

  • Success and Failure of the Civil Rights Movement

    1574 Words  | 4 Pages

    Success was a big part of the Civil Rights Movement. Starting with the year 1954, there were some major victories in favor of African Americans. In 1954, the landmark trial Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka Kansas ruled that segregation in public education was unfair. This unanimous Supreme Court decision overturned the prior Plessy vs. Ferguson case during which the “separate but equal” doctrine was created and abused. One year later, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. launched a bus boycott in Montgomery Alabama after Ms. Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat in the “colored section”. This boycott, which lasted more than a year, led to the desegregation of buses in 1956. Group efforts greatly contributed to the success of the movement. This is not only shown by the successful nature of the bus boycott, but it is shown through the success of Martin Luther King’s SCLC or Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The conference was notable for peacefully protesting, nonviolence, and civil disobedience. Thanks to the SCLC, sit-ins and boycotts became popular during this time, adding to the movement’s accomplishments. The effective nature of the sit-in was shown during 1960 when a group of four black college students sat down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in hopes of being served. While they were not served the first time they commenced their sit-in, they were not forced to leave the establishment; their lack of response to the heckling...

    Read More

  • Melba Pattillo Beals', Warriors Don't Cry

    2530 Words  | 6 Pages

    In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown vs. The Board of Education that schools needed to integrate and provide equal education for all people and it was unconstitutional for the state to deny certain citizens this opportunity. Although this decision was a landmark case and meant the schools could no longer deny admission to a child based solely on the color of their skin. By 1957, most schools had began to slowly integrate their students, but those in the deep south were still trying to fight the decision. One of the most widely known instances of this happening was at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. It took the school district three years to work out an integration plan. The board members and faculty didn't like the fact that they were going to have to teach a group of students that were looked down upon and seen as "inferior" to white students. However, after much opposition, a plan was finally proposed. The plan called for the integration to happen in three phases. First, during the 1957-1958 school year, the senior high school would be integrated, then after completion at the senior high level, the junior high would be integrated, and the elementary levels would follow in due time. Seventeen students were chosen from hundreds of applicants to be the first black teenagers to begin the integration process. The town went into an uproar. Many acts of violence were committed toward the African-Americans in the city. Racism and segregation seemed to be on the rise. Most black students decid...

    Read More

  • The Role of the Supreme Court in the Civil Rights Movement

    1964 Words  | 4 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • The Civil Rights Act of 1964

    1836 Words  | 4 Pages

    Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, segregation in the United States was commonly practiced in many of the Southern and Border States. This segregation while supposed to be separate but equal, was hardly that. Blacks in the South were discriminated against repeatedly while laws did nothing to protect their individual rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ridded the nation of this legal segregation and cleared a path towards equality and integration. The passage of this Act, while forever altering the relationship between blacks and whites, remains as one of history’s greatest political battles.

    Read More

  • The Struggle for Freedom Among African American Citizens

    1390 Words  | 3 Pages

    As more and more African American students were admitted into white Southern schools, segregationists continued to retaliate and defend their schools against them. No matter how difficult the situation turned out for some of them, and without much help from the government, African Americans did everything they possibly could to protect their educational rights for the sake of their future and success, and in the hope of promoting equality for all African American people in the United States. These students became the symbol of freedom and opened up the window of opportunity for all black people, for their ancestors, and for the future generations to come. Works Cited "Eyes on the Prize - 02 - Fighting Back, 1957-1962." YouTube.

    Read More

  • Two Sources on Desegregation and the Little Rock Nine

    658 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1957 Little Rock High School allowed 9 black students to attend the school due to forced desegregation. At the first attempt of the students going to the school, they were kept out by armed guards at the gates which were sent by Governor Orval Faubus. The second attempt went slightly better as President Eisenhower sent federal troops to escort the students through the rioting white students. The troops were then used as body guards for the first few days to keep the new students safe, but once dismissed the white students could taunt and tease them as much as they wanted.

    Read More

More about Lessons from the "Little Rock Nine"

Open Document