LITTLE ROCK CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL

LISA TOSTADOMICHELLE GOMEZCARMEN AGUILARMELISSA TORRES

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENTGROUP 5, History 1302 1st Pd.

QUESTION:

How was Central High School a turning point of the civil rights

movement?

LITTLE ROCK CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL

Background:

• In a key event of the American Civil Rights Movement, nine black students enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957, testing a landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

• The court had mandated that all public schools in the country be integrated "with all deliberate speed" in its decision related to the groundbreaking case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. On September 4, 1957, the first day of classes at Central High, Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas called in the state National Guard to bar the black students' entry into the school. Later in the month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort the "Little Rock Nine" into the school, and they started their first full day of classes on September 25.

• Before this event happened, schools desegregated and were massively unfair. Little Rock became such a famous event mainly trough the media. The media also took an important role in this era since the event gave African Americans the chance to show how they really felt without any real effort of getting their word out.

• The media was also less helpful towards the whites as it portrayed them as unfair people.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, Little Rock Central High School was a turning point in the civil rights movement because it brought equality in schools for everybody. It re-enforced the idea that everybody who received an education could go to the same school no matter of their race or better yet, skin color.