Little Rock Nine Thesis

The group that earned the well-respected name of “Little Rock Nine,” was made up of nine Negro students who began the long journey to total and absolute integration. Pushing past racial slurs, horrid comments in correlation to the color of their skin, and violent protests against the desegregation of schools, on September 25 of 1957, these specific people continued to stand firmly alongside their beliefs. The Civil Rights Movement was a time in which many yearned to erase the line placed between those with different colors of skin, and the Little Rock Nine heavily influenced the progression of these vital rights. They were some of the first African Americans to enter a school designated for whites only, and this permanently changed the way
Before these heroic figures in history added to the progression of the Civil Rights Movement, education was predominantly considered to be for caucasians only, and in areas where this was not the case, African Americans were still considered unworthy to attend the same public schools they went to. In 1954, only three years before some of the first Negro students had enrolled in a school built for only those of pale skin, the U.S. Supreme Court had declared segregation in public schools to be rather unconstitutional and unfit (“Integration of Central High School”). They talked of how it did not seem to follow closely behind just exactly what the United States was built upon-- unity, justice, and utter, absolute equality. Surprisingly, the entire state of Arkansas was not known to be rather chauvinistic. The progression in this particular Souther state was thought to have been moving smoothly, so most people did not expect the introduction of Negroes to a school originally built for whites to cause such an uproar (“The Little Rock
Eisenhower gained power of the chaotic situation. He sent over 1,200 members of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division to help control the National Guard troops that had previously been ordered to hinder what the Negroes were trying to accomplish-- to enter Central High School and began the long, difficult journey to absolute racial equality (“Integration of Central High School”).An angry mob of caucasians surrounded the school while the Little Rock Nine were escorted by police through the entrance. The Negroes were spit on, kicked, and clawed at viciously while they passed the brutal protesters, and later, these children would grow up to speak of how these hateful comments led to a life filled with the desperate craving of