The Little Rock Integration Crisis Essays - , Term Papers

The Little Rock Integration Crisis The Little Rock Integration Crisis Nearly a century after the conclusion of the civil war, our nation was still not united. However, no longer was tension between the north and south threatening the welfare of our country, but instead the segregation of African-Americans. A primary goal in the civil war was abolishing slavery and although that was accomplished, many believed that blacks were hardly better off. However, a sense that change was necessary had swept across the United States. The desegregation movement was just beginning and the effects of the Little Rock Integration Crisis was one of the earliest stepping stones leading towards a united nation; this event helped set new standards of integration, while setting an example to the rest of the world that old forms of segregation would no longer be accepted. In the early 1950s, racial segregation was widely accepted across the nation. It was believed that this would create a better learning atmosphere for white students. Although all school districts across cities and states were supposed to be equal, facilities, teachers, and school conditions were far superior in white schools than black schools. This system was feebly challenged until 1951. In Topeka, Kansas, Oliver Brown attempted to enroll his third-grade daughter to an all white school. Olivers daughter had to walk more than a mile to her all black school, while the white school was merely seven blocks from their home. Although denied enrollment, Brown appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. In the precedent-setting trial of Brown vs. the Board of Education, Chief Justice Earl Warren declared that the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of Oliver Brown no longer would segregation be permitted. Brown vs. the Board of Education was the catalyst to the Little Rock Integration Crisis. After the decision, the Little Rock school board accepted the fact that it had to integrate black and white children in their schools. Reluctantly, the Little Rock school board developed an integration plan, although it took more than three years to create. Nonetheless, by 1957 the integration plan was finished. The plan called for three phases. The primary phase would take place in the 1957-1958 school year. During this school year, the senior high schools, grades 10-12, would be integrated. The following school year the junior high schools would be integrated. After the two previous schools were successfully integrated, the elementary schools would be integrated. As the 1957-1958 school year grew near, the board began to plan for the senior high school integration. It was decided that the Horace Mann school, better known as the all black school, would be kept intact. Some students from the Horace Mann school would be selected to attend the local white high school, called Central High. Of the several black students that volunteered to attend Central High, a selection process selected the seventeen students they felt would fit the best. These students were selected mostly on their exceptional grades; however, the students were also engaged in many extracurricular activities. As the new school year approached, the seventeen students dwindled down to nine, as many feared they would not be able to handle the intense pressures of the all white school. The tension grew in Little Rock and the students were forced to face much adversity before the school year even began. A number of whites went to court to try to put a court ordered injunction on the integration, but they were all denied. Many members of the black community disapproved of the integration as well, claiming that the students did not deserve to be among the higher class white students and that they would be out of place. The Little Rock school board did as much as they could to limit the blacks as well. Knowing they could not prevent integration, the school board simply laid several restrictions on the new black students, banning them from extracurricular activities and athletics. The school board cited that this was because they were transfer students; however, the truth was quite evident that this was not truly the reason. Regardless, these nine, courageous students prepared to attend their first day at Central High on September 3, 1957. On September 2, 1957, the night before