David Aretha - The Story of the Little Rock Nine and School Desegregation in Photographs

The Story of the LITTLE ROCK NINE AND SCHOOL DESEGREGATION in Photographs

In September 1957, nine brave African-American students attempted to do something that had not been done in the segregated Southintegrate a public school. Until 1957, black students could not attend school with white students, and black schools were often inferior to white schools. However, in the face of hatred, protest, and violence, these courageous students, who came to be known as the Little Rock Nine, led the charge for change. Through riveting primary source photographs, author David Aretha examines this critical time in the Civil Rights Movement.

About the Author

David Aretha, editor of the acclaimed Civil Rights Chronicle: The African-American Struggle for Freedom, has written numerous books on the subject for young readers.

Lawyers George E. C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James M. Nabrit (left to right) celebrate their great victory in front of the U.S. Supreme Court Building. On May 17, 1954, the court ruled that segregation would no longer be tolerated in Americas public schools.

In the United States of America, all citizens have the right to free education in public schools. Unfortunately, free education has not always meant equal education.

For a hundred years after slavery was abolished in 1865, the southern United States was largely segregated. A segregated society means that the dominant racial group separates and mistreats a less-powerful group. Southern white people dominated politics in their states. They created laws favorable to whites and unfair to African Americans. In the segregated South, whites had separate and better facilities. Among many other establishments, white schools, restaurants, churches, and theaters were superior to those built for black citizens.

Pauli Murray grew up in North Carolina. She wrote in her 1956 book Proud Shoes: Our seedy run-down school told us that if we had any place at all in the grand scheme of things it was a separate place.... We were bottled up and labeled and sent asidesent to the [segregated] car, the back of the bus, the side door of the theater, the side window of a restaurant. We came to know that whatever we had was always inferior.

For generations, African Americans were not able to challenge the system. Whites in the South kept them poor by paying low wages. They created schemes to prevent most black citizens from voting. Law enforcement and hate groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, intimidated any black people who stepped out of line. Up through the 1950s, the U.S. government rarely came to the aid of southern African Americans.

When it came to segregation, the saddest discrepancies were in the public schools. White students went to decent schools. No black students were allowed to attend them. Black students were assigned to inferior colored schools. In 1940, some states in the South spent more than twice as much money on each white student as they did on each black pupil. In Mississippi, the state spent $513 per white student and just $89 for each black student.

In 1933, black lawyers Thurgood Marshall and Charles Houston toured the South to review the black and white schools. They found that the white school in one southern county had six rooms, six teachers. Assembly hall, piano, individual desks. Three buses to transport children. The black school in the county had 68 pupils packed into one room, 20 16 feet, on seven benches. No tables, no desks, no stove [for heating]. One chair, one open fireplace. When black children had to use the bathroom, they had to cross railroad and highway to get to the woods.

For years, Houston and Marshall fought against segregation in federal (U.S.) courts. They argued that segregated schools violated the rights of African Americans. The U.S. Constitution, they pointed out, promised equal rights for all Americans. In their many court cases, Houston and Marshall proved that schools for black students were inferior. In addition, the concept of separate schools for black children was unfair. Psychologists took the witness stand. They stated that black students felt unwanted by white society. They felt inferior.

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court made a historic ruling in the case Brownv.Board of Education of Topeka Kansas. In that case, Marshall argued that segregated public schools should be abolished. The Supreme Court agreed. We conclude, Chief Justice Earl Warren declared, that in the field of public education the doctrine of separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

From that point forward, segregated schools violated federal law. The next year, the Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools had to be desegregated. White schools had to admit black students. But the Supreme Court ruled that the desegregation process should occur with all deliberate speed. That phrase, though, was vague. Deliberate can be understood as being slow. And thats how southern politicians considered it.

The majority of southern white citizens did not want to desegregate the schools. They didnt want their children learning with, befriending, or dating black students. So, as the editor of one newsletter stated, the southern strategy on desegregation was to delay, delay, delay.

In 1956, 101 members of Congress signed a document called the Southern Manifesto. They announced that their states would refuse to obey the Supreme Courts decision. By 1957, few of the Souths white schools had opened their doors to black students.

However, the school board in Little Rock, Arkansas, was willing to gradually integrate its schools. School board members agreed that Central High School would be the first to integrate, beginning in September 1957. The federal district court agreed with the school board and insisted on integration.

Daisy Bates, an African-American civil rights activist in Little Rock, took the lead. The time for delay, evasion, or procrastination was over, she declared. The school board selected ten black students to desegregate Central High School. One student chose not to enroll. The rest became the Little Rock Nineall excellent students from respected families. They also were considered mature enough to deal with the publicity and harassment they might face.

Many whites in Little Rock remained strongly opposed to integration. On August 27, 1957, the all-white Mothers League of Central High School held its first public meeting. They also filed a motion in local court to prevent the Little Rock Nine from attending Central High School. On August 29, the court sided with the Mothers League.

The first day of classes at Central High would be September 4. Would the Little Rock Nine students show up that day? Would they be admitted into the school? Many expected a conflict. But few could have dreamed that the president would need to call in the U.S. Army.

Black and white citizens stroll through downtown Little Rock, Arkansas. Little Rock was not as segregated as other southern cities. By the mid-1950s, the buses, parks, and libraries had all been integrated. Schools, however, were a different story.