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PROFILES IN COURAGE |
THE LITTLE ROCK NINE
On
September 20, Judge Ronald N. Davies granted NAACP lawyers Thurgood Marshall and
Wiley Branton an injunction that prevented Governor Faubus from using the
National Guard to deny the nine black students admittance to Central High.
Faubus announced that he would comply with the court order, although he hoped
that the black students would choose to stay away from Central until integration
could occur without violence.
On Monday, September 23, the nine black students, often called "The Little Rock Nine" set off for Central High. Meanwhile, the mob outside the school beat several black reporters there to cover the event. The reporters were saved when word came that the black students had entered the school. The mob went crazy. Mothers yelled to their children, "Come out! Don't stay in there with those niggers!" [8] Inside the school, the black students became the brunts of various jokes. White students spat on them, tripped them, and yelled insults. More serious problems were to come. By 11:30, the city police surrounding the school felt that they could no longer control the mob. The students had to leave the school through a rear entrance.
Asked to describe the situation in Little Rock that night, the editor of the Arkansas Gazette stated, "I'll give it to you in one sentence. The police have been routed, the mob is in the streets and we're close to a reign of terror."
To ensure that the Little Rock Nine could complete a full day of classes, President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock. The 101st patrolled outside the school and escorted the black students into the school. In addition, the black students were assigned a personal guard from the 101st who followed them around the school. Still, they were subjects of unspeakable hatred. White students yelled insults in the halls and during class. They beat up the black students, particularly the boys. They walked on the heels of the blacks until they bled. They destroyed the black students' lockers and threw flaming paper wads at them in the bathrooms. They threw lighted sticks of dynamite at Melba Pattillo, stabbed her, and sprayed acid in her eyes. The acid was so strong that had her 101st guard not splashed water on her face immediately, she would have been blind for the rest of her life.
Gradually, the 101st Airborne left Central High and the black students were left to fend for themselves. By the time Christmas rolled around, they were certainly ready for a vacation. Unfortunately, vacation did not come soon enough for Minnijean Brown, who dumped her lunch tray over the heads of two boys who had been taunting her on December 17th. Even though the boys said that they "didn't blame her for getting mad" after all the insults she had endured over the course of the year, Minnijean was suspended for six days. [10] She was "[r]einstated on probation [on] January 13, 1958, with the agreement that she would not retaliate, verbally or physically, to any harassment but would leave the matter to the school authorities to handle." [11] But she was expelled in February after she called a girl who was provoking her "white trash." The whites in the school were jubilant, making up cards that said, "One down...eight to go!"
It was not to be. The other eight all finished the school year. In May, despite numerous protests and under the watchful eye of 125 federalized Arkansas National Guardsmen, Ernest Green became the first black graduate of Central High, the sole minority student in his 602-member class.
As Ernest Green graduated from Central High, segregationists in Arkansas geared up to prevent the other seven students from doing the same. Once again, the Little Rock School Board asked for an injunction delaying integration until 1961. Although the injunction was initially granted, it was overturned by the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in August 1958. The reversal was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on September 12, 1958. The highest court in the land had told Little Rock that it must integrate.
But
Governor Faubus had other plans. After he learned of the Supreme Court decision,
he signed a package of segregation bills that had been passed by the Arkansas
State Legislature in August, including a bill that granted him the power to shut
down the public schools in any part of the state. He then proceeded to close
down all four of Little Rock's public high schools, stating, "If Daisy Bates [an
NAACP leader] would find an honest job and go to work, and if the U.S. Supreme
Court would keep its cotton-picking hands off the Little Rock School Board's
affairs, we could open the Little Rock [public] schools!"
[13]
Meanwhile, the families of the Little Rock Nine came under tremendous pressure. Three of their parents were fired or forced to resign from their jobs. Some of the families moved away. The five students who remained in Little Rock took correspondence courses from the University of Arkansas while they waited for the public schools to reopen.
Finally, in the summer of 1959, the act which Governor Faubus had used to shut down the schools was declared unconstitutional. He immediately began work on a new law to take its place, but to avoid it, the school board opened the Little Rock high schools early, on August 12th. The only two black students assigned to Central High were both members of the original Little Rock Nine, Jefferson Thomas and Carlotta Walls; three other black students were assigned to the newer Hall High. Both Jefferson and Carlotta graduated that spring.
The crisis in Little Rock had a profound impact on America and the rest of
the world. It provided indelible proof of the lengths to which some Southerners
would go to prevent integration. It also showed African Americans that they
could attain the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution if they made
themselves heard, on the street and in the courtroom. "The
lunch counter sit-ins, the
Freedom Rides, and similar struggles in which Negroes, led by Negroes,
successfully engaged in after Little Rock would possibly have taken place at
some time in the future in any case," noted Daisy Bates. "But that these events
occurred when they did is probably due more to the impact of Little Rock than to
any other factor
