During the Brown v. Board of Education trial in 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The first attempt to integrate African Americans into the white schools was at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Nine young African Americans were enrolled at Central High School in September of 1957. This caused a lot of opposition due to the high amounts of racial discrimination in the Southern states. Even the governor of Arkansas called for their state’s national guard to block the black students from entering the school. Many of the white peers would strongly harass and ridicule the African American students in the school. Violence was also present; this is especially seen in one major riot that occurred after the Little Rock Nine’s enrollment. This led to President Dwight D. Eisenhower issuing Executive Order 10730 which sent U.S army men to protect the black students.
The Little Rock Nine were significant because they showed the persistent opposition to the changing of the federal laws determining segregation. Despite the laws having changed on the federal scale, many people acted against the law due to their racist beliefs. Also, it emphasized the racial discrimination on a wider scale since it was covered in the media. This led to widespread awareness of the injustice faced by African Americans and the problems they were still facing. The Little Rock Nine were symbols of the evolving laws but the inflexible beliefs of the Southern people.
citations:
-https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=89
-http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/central-high-school-integration
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