“1957 Little Rock Nine.”

Bescription Of Debate

     Faubus was set on preventing his schools from integration. The Little Rock School Board was granted an injunction delaying integration until 1961. However, the ruling was overturned by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and integration was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1958. Faubus ignored the ruling and used his power to shut down Little Rock's public schools. During the shutdown, white students attended private schools in the area but black students had no choice but to wait.

Its' Occurence?

  • May 17, 1954: The U.S. Supreme Court issued its historic Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.  The decision declared all laws establishing segregated schools to be unconstitutional, and it called for the desegregation of all schools throughout the nation.
  • May 24, 1955: Virgil Blossom, the Superintendent of Schools, submitted a plan of gradual integration to the school board, which the board unanimously approved. The plan would be implemented during the fall of the 1957 school year, which would begin in September 1957.
  • 1957: By 1957, the NAACP had registered nine black students to attend the previously all-white Little Rock Central High, selected on the criteria of excellent grades and attendance.[3] The nicknamed "Little Rock Nine" consisted of Ernest Green (b. 1941), Elizabeth Eckford (b. 1941), Jefferson Thomas (1942–2010), Terrence Roberts (b. 1941), Carlotta Walls LaNier (b. 1942), Minnijean Brown (b. 1941), Gloria Ray Karlmark (b. 1942), Thelma Mothershed (b. 1940), and Melba Beals (b. 1941).
  • September 24th, 1957: the President ordered the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to Little Rock and federalized the entire 10,000 member Arkansas National Guard, taking it out of the hands of Governor Faubus.
  • Wednesday September 25th of 1957:  Little Rock Nine's first day of school.
  •  August 1958: Orval Faubus (State governor) called a special session of the state legislature to pass a law allowing him to close public schools to avoid integration and to lease the closed schools to private school corporations -- and the following year the public school system closed for the year.
  • June 1959: A federal court declared the state's school-closing law unconstitutional. School re-opened in September, 1959, with just two of the original nine students re-enrolling -- Jefferson Thomas and Carlotta Walls.

How Did the People Take It?

     On September 9, "The Council of Church Women" issued a statement condemning the governor's deployment of soldiers to the high school and called for a citywide prayer service on September 12. Even President Dwight Eisenhower attempted to de-escalate the situation and summoned Governor Faubus to meet him. The President warned the governor not to interfere with the Supreme Court's ruling.