The Little Rock Nine

 

          After the Brown Decision, nineteen black students were chosen to go to the all-white high school in their town called Central High School. The number went down to eventually only nine students by the opening day of school. Daisy Bates, who was the publisher of a newspaper called The Arkansas State Press as well as the president of the local NAACP branches in Arkansas, was the advisor of the students, and campaigned in the name of the NAACP. Thurgood Marshall and Wiley Branton were attorneys in the campaign Bates led with the NAACP. The campaign concerned the desegregation of the public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Board of the School agreed with the campaign, and began to integrate schools starting at Central High School, by accepting remaining nine black students.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

          The act angered many white citizens. Before the school opened, the Governor of Arkansas called in National Guard to try to prevent the nine students from entering the school. The day school began, the mayor of Little Rock asked for federal assistance from President Eisenhower, who sent in federal troops to protect the nine students as the entered the high school. The nine students, or the Little Rock Nine, finished the school year and one student graduated that year with federal help. The Governor of Arkansas, Faubus, closed all the high schools in the town to not have to integrate them, but they were eventually reopened. Only four students of the Little Rock Nine returned.