The Little Rock Nine of Central High School

1704 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: History Essay Civil Rights movement

Mohandas K. Gandhi liberated India from oppression. Nelson Mandela liberated South Africa from bondage. Who will help liberate the United States from prejudice? Both Gandhi and Mandela saw the need for change and answered the call to do just that. Though they accomplished a great number of things, they endured many trials and tribulations. However, their persecutions did not outweigh their persistence in changing their nation. Because they saw a problem, because they fought for a solution, and because they never gave up, nations were transformed. Fifty years ago, the beginning of a transformation began, not by one great leader, but by nine high school students. Injustices, incrimination and intimidation literally clouded their vision but did not deter them from their course of action. The Little Rock Nine students demonstrated the power of courage and determination by fighting against prejudice and influencing change. The world still needs strong, courageous individuals to stand up and overcome major obstacles today.

In 1954, The Supreme Court issued the Brown v. Board of Education case. The decision established the fact that all segregated schools were unconstitutional and were to be desegregated nationwide (bookrags). Though this integration process would not begin until the 1957-1958 school year, this was a big step for African- Americans. In 1957, nine students had been registered to attend Little Rock's Central High School. Initially, seventeen students had signed up to go to CHS; however, threats and violence became so prevalent that eight students decided against integrating CHS. The nine brave students who determined themselves to attend CHS came to be known as the Little Rock Nine: Thelma Mothershed, Minnijean Brown, Eli...

... middle of paper ...

...t it will prevail. The six students hold pleasant expressions that express their comfort and confidence in Marshall and Bates. Expressions of hope and happiness fill their faces. Melba gazes straight ahead as if she is looking ahead towards a hopeful future (Bettmann/CORBIS).

What if people would keep hope alive? What if people were determined to encourage determination? It’s time that the people of this nation uplift and support each other through every challenge faced. Instead, the nation exhibits the “new racism” by selfishly wanting success, “in terms of cultural, social, and economic status,” for their own (Beals, 1994). Businessmen won’t help their fellow businessman because they may be selfishly consumed with their own to care of help anyone else succeed. It’s time that our nation encourage and support determination in order for the nation to be prosperous.

Show More
Related

  • Note to Educators: Hope Required when Growing Roses in Concrete

    617 Words  | 2 Pages

    We live in a world that is always changing and as such creates inequality and suffering. Many people feel the need to change this and hope for a better world. Even though people have different religions and beliefs, we all have some hope,which motivates us to wake up everyday and make a difference in this world. Hope is what brings us together to fight for a common cause. As Duncan-Andrade explains throughout his article, “Note to Educators: Hope Required When Growing Roses in Concrete,” it is not enough to hope for a better future, especially for young people of color because hoping will not bring the needed change we expect.

    Read More

  • The Fourteenth Amendment In Melba Beals's Warriors Don T Cry

    1169 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted on July 9, 1868. That, by no means meant the end of the struggle, it was only the beginning. In Little Rock, Arkansas at the time that Brown v Board of Education passed, black and white relationships were under the Jim Crow laws. All public facilities were segregated and clearly not equal. The Jim Crow Laws were the basis of everyday interactions between black and white people in the south. Melba Beals and the other “Little Rock Nine” braving the walk towards the doors of Central High School and several others landmark events spearhead the demise of these laws.

    Read More

  • Feng Ru Research Paper

    1322 Words  | 3 Pages

    Board of Education, Melba Pattillo Beals will always be known as one of the first black students to go to a white school. Her race have hoped of this for years now, and the Little Rock Nine had made it with the support of the general army. People went as far as to hurt them, resulting as far for the government to support nine black students. This is what it takes to charge forward, or to hit a home run like Jackie Robinson.

    Read More

  • Martin Luther King Jr. and Susan B. Anthony’s Effects on The Brunswick Community

    1048 Words  | 3 Pages

    ”(Martin Luther King Jr.... ... middle of paper ... ... Gandhi is to MLK Jr. as SBA and MLK Jr. is to the people of this generation. Now, instead of getting a shoe named after them, these two Civil Rights leaders got laws changed based off of their beliefs with help from people who followed them and their dedication to this topic. These two people revolutionized people’s judgmental thoughts about others, about what they look like and believe, and instead only off of actions or what people have said.

    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

  • Baldwin and The Little Rock Nine

    2329 Words  | 5 Pages

    Throughout his literature, James Baldwin discusses the issues of racial inequality within America and discusses reasons for the conflicts between races, proposing his solutions to the problems. One of the most important and recurring motifs between his works is the idea of history; the history of whites in western society and its origin in European thinking and the history of the American Negro, whose history is just as American as his white counterpart’s. The importance of these histories as being one combined “American history” is integral to the healing process between the two races. The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision is a landmark event for blacks and whites alike, and the events following three years later in Little Rock, Arkansas mark the beginning of a long journey to fulfill the promise of equal education made by the Supreme Court. The 1957 events in Little Rock quickly became the nationally covered story of the Little Rock Nine, a legacy that still lives on today despite a James Baldwin prediction made in his essay “Take Me to the Water.” Specifically, nine African-American students were given permission by the Little Rock school board to attend Central High School, one of the nation’s top 40 high schools, integrating a formally all-white campus. During the initial weeks, these students were prevented from entering the school by US military summoned by the Arkansas governor. The Little Rock case drew immediate media attention and became a nationwide symbol of the civil rights movement. The story of the Little Rock Nine embodies James Baldwin’s arguments and observations regarding necessity of education as a crucial step to achievin...

    Read More

  • Brown v. Board of Education Decision

    2171 Words  | 5 Pages

    Before the decision of Brown v. Board of Education, many people accepted school segregation and, in most of the southern states, required segregation. Schools during this time were supposed to uphold the “separate but equal” standard set during the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson; however, most, if not all, of the “black” schools were not comparable to the “white” schools. The resources the “white” schools had available definitely exceed the resources given to “black” schools not only in quantity, but also in quality. Brown v. Board of Education was not the first case that assaulted the public school segregation in the south. The title of the case was shortened from Oliver Brown ET. Al. v. the Board of Education of Topeka Kansas. The official titled included reference to the other twelve cases that were started in the early 1950’s that came from South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia. The case carried Oliver Brown’s name because he was the only male parent fighting for integration. The case of Brown v. Board o...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of 'The More Factor' By Laurence Shames

    1776 Words  | 4 Pages

    The pool of opportunity has grown smaller from what it once was, and it seems that opportunity parallels the wealth in capitalist America—a small number of individuals are successful in their endeavors, and the rest must settle for less with disappointment and disillusionment. While hard work and perseverance may push individuals to new heights, the power of optimism and positive thinking can only take a person so far. The great American dream and frontier is only available to those with certain circumstances, and those circumstances are becoming less available to the new generation coming into the

    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

  • The Little Rock Integration Crisis

    1540 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the early 1950's, racial segregation was widely accepted across the nation. It was believed that this would create a better learning atmosphere for white students. Although all school districts across cities and states were supposed to be equal, facilities, teachers, and school conditions were far superior in white schools than black schools. This system was feebly challenged until 1951. In Topeka, Kansas, Oliver Brown attempted to enroll his third-grade daughter to an all white school. Oliver's daughter had to walk more than a mile to her all black school, while the white school was merely seven blocks from their home. Although denied enrollment, Brown appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. In the precedent-setting trial of Brown vs. the Board of Education, Chief Justice Earl Warren declared that the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of Oliver Brown -- no longer would segregation be permitted.

    Read More

  • Prejudice Destroyed the American Dream

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    One major factor that decides how successful someone will be is determined by race. Although by law, discrimination due to race is illegal, this does not completely deter racial discrimination. This is especially true concerning the American dream, as it proves the chance for success is not the same for everyone. Studs Turkel records Stephen Cruz’s oral retelling of his story of discrimination. Stephen Cruz is a Mexican-American who is discriminated against due to that fact. Although he does receive a well paying job, he knows he only received t...

    Read More

  • Desegregation, Busing, and Schools

    2536 Words  | 6 Pages

    Brown v. Board of the Education in 1954 was a landmark decision in the education arena. The decision maintained that schools that separated students by the color of their skin could no longer be maintained. The court saw this as necessary, since in their mind schools for black students would always be inferior. This inferiority would not be caused by lack of resources, although that usually was a contributing factor to the poor quality of the school, physically and performance-wise. As the Supreme Court saw it, s...

    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

  • Martin Luther King's Successful Philosophy

    1005 Words  | 3 Pages

    Nearly three centuries ago, black men and women from Africa were brought to America and put into slavery. They were treated more cruelly in the United States than in any other country that had practiced slavery. African Americans didn’t gain their freedom until after the Civil War, nearly one-hundred years later. Even though African Americans were freed and the constitution was amended to guarantee racial equality, they were still not treated the same as whites and were thought of as second class citizens. One man had the right idea on how to change America, Martin Luther King Jr. had the best philosophy for advancing civil rights, he preached nonviolence to express the need for change in America and he united both African Americans and whites together to fight for economic and social equality.

    Read More

  • The Impact of the Little Rock Nine

    1198 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Little Rock Nine started out as nine students just signing up for a school. They never knew it would have turned into something as big as it did. The nine brave students who signed up to go to Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas were African American. They were all hated by their fellow students just for their skin color. Unsurprisingly, all of their peers at CHS were white.

    Read More

More about The Little Rock Nine of Central High School

Open Document