Three Segregationists Voted Off Little Rock, Arkansas, School Board; Integration Struggle Continues
The struggle over the desegregation of the Little Rock public schools continued after the crisis of 1957, and on this day the voters recalled three pro-segregation members of the school board. The new board then voted to reopen the schools that the old board had closed for the 1958–1959 school year rather than integrate them.
The Little Rock school integration crisis was one of the most famous civil rights controversies of the 1950s. On September 23, 1957, a mob had blocked the entry of nine African-American students (the “Little Rock Nine”), who had been admitted to Central High School under a federal court-ordered desegregation plan. President Dwight Eisenhower called out federal troops to ensure their admission to the school on September 25, 1957. Images of federal troops with bayonets deployed went across the country and around the world, damaging America’s reputation in the Cold War.
On September 12, 1958, in Cooper v. Aaron, the Supreme Court overruled an attempt by local officials to block school integration in a decision that asserted the supremacy of the authority of the federal courts. The Court’s decision, however, did not cover the school board, which voted to close the schools. The victory of pro-integration forces on this day was a result of the leadership of an organized group of mothers and the business community, both of whom were concerned about the impact of closed public schools on the community. The Little Rock public schools reopened in the fall of 1959.
On the fortieth anniversary of the Little Rock crisis, President Bill Clinton honored the Little Rock Nine in a ceremony on September 27, 1997.
Central High School, which continues to function as a high school, is a designated National Historic Site maintained by U.S. Park Service. Across the street is a museum dedicated to the integration crisis. And on the other side of the street is the original gas station , restored to the condition it was in during the crisis.
Learn more: Karen Anderson, Race and Resistance at Central High School (2010)
Learn more at a timeline of the Little Rock crisis: http://www.nps.gov/chsc/historyculture/timeline.htm
Watch a documentary on the Little Rock crisis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xERXusiEszs
Read the book by Daisy Bates, Little Rock’s integration leader: Daisy Bates, The Long Shadow of Little Rock: A Memoir (1962)
View a chronology of the Little Rock Crisis.
Visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture here