President Clinton Honors “Little Rock Nine” on 40th Anniversary of the Integration Crisis
President Bill Clinton on this day honored the “Little Rock Nine,” the nine African American students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957.
At the ceremony in Little Rock, Clinton stood inside Central High School and symbolically opened the door as members of the Little Rock Nine entered the school.
The Little Rock integration crisis was one of the most dramatic civil rights confrontations of the 1950s. In the face of mobs of segregationists opposing integration (see September 23, 1957), and the failure of Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus to maintain order, President Dwight D. Eisenhower mobilized federal troops to ensure integration of the school on September 25, 1957. Clinton was an 11-year-old in Hope, Arkansas at the time, and he recalled in his memoirs being gripped by the integration crisis.
Read President Bill Clinton’s remarks at the anniversary:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=54687Watch the Little Rock crisis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xERXusiEszs
Watch Bill Clinton present the Congressional Gold Medal to the Little Rock Nine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aeiw_6b9DqY
Learn more: Karen Anderson, Race and Resistance at Central High School (2010)
Visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture here