Little Rock Nine

Little Rock Nine. Harry T. and Harriet V. Moore Memorial Park. , The Little Rock Nine, Ernest Green (b. 1941), Elizabeth Eckford (b. 1942), Jefferson Thomas (1942-2010), Terrence Roberts (b. 1941), Carlotta Walls LaNier (b. 1942), Minnijean Brown (b. 1941), Gloria Ray Karlmark (b.1942), Thema Morthershed (b. 1940), and Melba Pattillo Beals were black students who sought to attend Little Rock Central High School in the fall of 1957. The Supreme Court had ruled segregated schools unconstitutional in its landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling three years later, states in the South finally began to face the reality of federally mandated integration. It was historic, and dramatic - and for weeks on end, it was profoundly ugly. , , In Little Rock, on Sept. 4, 1957 - on the first day of school - the media recorded the scene as 15-year- old Elizabeth Eckford, the first of the nine to arrive, was waved off of school grounds by Arkansas National Guardsmen, their rifles raised. , , On Sept. 23, the nine students entered Little Rock Central High School for the first time, ignoring verbal abuse and threats from the crowd outside. When the mob realized the students had successfully entered the school, violence erupted, and seven journalists were attacked. As the situation deteriorated, school officials, fearing for the students’ safety, dismissed the Little Rock Nine at lunchtime. , , Although the Little Rock Nine were finally able to attend classes by late September 1957,the fight wasn’t over; throughout the rest of the school year, they faced ongoing abuse, threats, discrimination and acts of hazing from their white peers and, disgracefully, from equality vicious adults. But when spring 1958 came round, eight of the nine had successfully completed the school year. In an elemental way, they had won.