Answer:
Step-by-step explanation:
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957.
How did the Little Rock Nine influence the Civil Rights Movement?
The Little Rock Nine (were 9 black high school students selected to be the first black high school students at the segregated white high school in Little Rock Arkansas. Their arrival at the school initiated a historical conflict among local, state, and Federal jurisdiction and enforcement units known as the Little Rock Crisis.
The events, positions, and historical consequences are all quite significant. In some ways, these nine students going to high school was a harbinger for, and an initial point of, the civil rights movement.
- In 1954, the US Supreme Court, in Brown vs. The Board of Education, determined that segregation of schools violated the 14th amendment and must end.
- The NAACP reviewed and managed desegregation plans, including in Arkansas.
- The Little Rock Board of Education first expressed a willingness to comply, then agreed to comply with minimal requirements, then resisted further, going out of compliance with Federal law and regulation. Their motives were probably mixed - some racism, and some need to face the fact that, if desegregation were enforced, violence would break out.
- The City of Little Rock favored desegregation.
- The Governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, opposed and resisted Segregation.
- The President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, enforced the Supreme Court ruling.
- Initially, the National Guard of the State of Arkansas was under the control of Governor Faubus, with orders to maintain order and prevent the black youths from attending the school.
There were various tactics used over the course of about two years, including the closing of all public schools to prevent desegregation. When the opening of private schools was blocked, racist attacks against blacks occurred.
The nine children were told that they had been selected as black children most likely to be accepted, but that they would face harassment and assault, and they should not respond with violence. They did so.
The military could get them inside the school, but could not protect them once they were inside. Their fellow students spat on them, cursed them, and physically assaulted them. One young woman had acid thrown in her eyes. Another one faced attempted murder, as other girls tried to burn her alive. And the attacks were not just from youth. One harassed student dropped her lunch tray, and was suspended for dropping the tray. So the persecution was from adults and official bodies within the school, as well.
A crucial element that made the event historical was when President Eisenhower ordered the 101st Army Airborne Division to take over the State National Guard and escort the students into the school while maintaining order. At the same time, the President federalized the Arkansas state National Guard, so that it was no longer under the command of Governor Faubus. As a result, the same soldiers who, obeying the governor’s orders, had prevented the students from entering the school now escorted them in.
The use of US armed forces on American soil is a constitutional issue. So is a state government resisting an order of the Supreme Court. Fortunately, there was no armed rebellion, and individual and mob violence was largely kept under control.
Some of the nine students have written about their experience, and seven of them reunited on the Oprah Winfrey show in 1996. Some of the white students who had persecuted them were on the show, as well.
This incident was a less famous precursor to The Stand in the Schoolhouse Door (Stand in the Schoolhouse Door) in 1963, where Alabama Governor Wallace showed up to prevent two black students from starting at the University of Alabama, violating a court order in doing so. The later event is more famous for several reasons: The governor showed up in person; Television was more prevalent and TV media were present; Kennedy was President, and federalized the Alabama National Guard, following in President Eisenhower’s footsteps, but Kennedy’s civil rights actions were more in the public eye, and the event was immortalized in Bob Dylan’s song The Times, They Are A’Changin’.