News, Fifty Years After Desegregation, Central High School Remains Divided. (minimum wage, legal)

[JD59]

Lessons of Little Rock

Looking at the pictures, it is hard to imagine that it happened in America, but it did, and not so long ago: Fifty years ago in Little Rock, Ark., white adults hurled insults and jeers at nine black teenagers who just wanted to go to school.

It was the first test of the Supreme Court decision striking down the separate-but-equal doctrine that had kept schools legally segregated.


In September 1957, the nine black students trying to integrate Little Rock Central High School were repeatedly blocked by the Arkansas National Guard, under orders from the governor.


After weeks of crisis, on Sept. 25, President Eisenhower brought in the U.S. Army -- and the Little Rock Nine, as they came to be called, finally enrolled.

ABC News: 50 Years Later, School Kids Self-Segregate

[Manigault]

Isn't it nice that we have equality of access to education and that taxpayer dollars are spent on educating black and white children at the sme rate? That sounds better to me.

Isn't it nice that (I believe) at least one of the white students in the notorious protesting pictures has apologized to the taunted students? That's a lesson for our youth today: Don't do something stupid in a moment that may last you a long time.

Isn't it nice that, instead or armed guerilla bands, black folks and white folks through the struggle came to at least grudgingly co-exist in Little Rock? That sounds nice to me.

Isn't it good that peaceful action forced the president of the United States (who was decrying the lack of liberties in Russia) to focus on the treatment of minorities in the US? Sounds at least like good PR to me.

Isn't it nice that people found out that a black child sitting next to a white child in a public school would not, in the words of Thurgood Marshall, "mean the world would explode"? That's at least an eye-opener.

[NewToCA]

I had the pleasure of working with one of the "Little Rock 9" kids (Jefferson Thomas) for a few years about five years ago. His story was incredible.

He mentioned to me the events leading up to that day He discussed how his mom worked a minimum wage job, and had to go to her employer and get permission to allow her son to be one of the students allowed to go to Central. Without her employer's permission, she would have been dismissed, and that was part of the accepted processes for black folks in Little Rock at that time.

Remarkable.