(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Photo Diary: Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-18 This National Historic Site commemorates the struggle to desegregate public schools in the South in the 1950s. For those who don't know, I live in a converted campervan and travel around the country, posting photo diaries of places that I visit. In 1953, the Supreme Court in its Brown v Board of Education decision, ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools was illegal, and ordered that public schools across the country be desegregated. The decision brought instant condemnation from the old Confederate South, where racial bigotry had continued unabated since the end of the Civil War. Most of the South practiced a system of racial apartheid known as “Jim Crow”, in which public facilities ranging from water fountains to housing were segregated by race, and they bitterly resisted desegregation. To get around the law and to continue their practice of racial discrimination, many Southerners pulled their children from public schools and sent them to “private schools”, which were not covered by the Court’s ruling and were free to continue their “Whites only” policy. Other school districts, supported by racist local and state governments, simply refused outright to desegregate. By 1957, although the Little Rock AR school district had already agreed to a desegregation plan, the public schools had still not been integrated. In response, the local branch of the NAACP recruited nine local African-American children to force the issue by registering as students at the all-White Central High School. When Central High School had been built in 1927, it cost over $1.5 million—making it one of the most expensive public schools in the country. By contrast, when the segregated Black-only Dunbar High School opened in 1929, it had cost just $400,000. In response to the effort to desegregate the High School, local parents in Little Rock, supported by the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Council, formed a group called the Mother’s League of Central High School to oppose the admission of Black students, and they filed a request for a court order to halt the desegregation. That injunction was denied by a Federal Judge, who instead ordered that the school be integrated. Then Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus spoke up. He was facing re-election in 1958, and now he saw an opportunity to curry favor with the majority of the (white) voting public. Citing “state’s rights” and the potential for “violence”, Faubus ordered that the African-American students be stopped from entering the school, and ordered the state’s National Guard to enforce his order. And so when the “Little Rock Nine” arrived at Central High School on September 4, they found it surrounded by armed National Guardsmen as well as a screaming mob of over a thousand White vigilantes who waved signs saying “Go back to Africa!” and “Desegregation is Communism!”. There were calls to lynch the students, and several supporters were beaten by the mob, including several reporters who were there to cover the riot. The nationwide TV images of screaming hate turned public opinion firmly in favor of the Black students. The NAACP, acting through attorney Thurgood Marshall, now filed a lawsuit, and a few weeks later the Federal Court ruled that the Governor had acted illegally by using the National Guard to defy Federal law, and ordered that the troops be removed and the school be desegregated. At the same time, civil rights leaders including Rev Dr Martin Luther King were putting pressure on President Dwight Eisenhower to act. At first reluctant to get involved in what had become a divisive political issue, Eisenhower at last relented and, after announcing that the State of Arkansas’s actions had been “disgraceful”, he federalized the Arkansas National Guard, placed it under his direct orders to remove it from Governor Faubus’s control—and dispatched 1,200 US Army troopers from the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock to “keep order”. "The only assurance I can give you,” Eisenhower told Faubus, “is that the Federal Constitution will be upheld by me by every legal means at my command." On September 25, escorted by armed paratroopers, the nine Black students finally entered Central High School. It became a defining moment for the civil rights movement. More conflict would follow. The troops remained for the rest of the school year as the nine African-American students were harassed by White students and by protesting mobs who gathered outside. In 1958, in response to an order from the Supreme Court demanding immediate desegregation, Governor Faubus closed all four of the public high schools in Little Rock rather than allow African-American students to be admitted there, and during the next year the school board fired over 40 teachers and administrators who had opposed the district’s segregationist policies. Little Rock’s schools were not fully opened again until September 1959, after a new school board had been put into place through a recall election. Today, although the Central High School still functions as a classroom building, it has been designated as a National Historic Site and the National Park Service runs a Visitors Center and a museum, and at certain times guided tours of the school building can be arranged. Some photos from a visit. Visitors Center Inside the museum Pair of saddle shoes worn by one of the Little Rock Nine Cards like this were printed up by local segregationists and passed around in the school “Individuals make a difference” The high school Commemorative Garden Plaque The intersection in 1957 [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/18/2189296/-Photo-Diary-Little-Rock-Central-High-School-National-Historic-Site?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/