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Harry S. Truman pressed congress to end the poll tax, enforce fair voting processes, and end Jim Crow Laws. As a result, he lost four southern states from his Democratic party in objection.
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The first step of the civil rights movement was when the armed services were desegregated in july 26,1948
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The United States Supreme Court rules racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Five days later, the Little Rock School Board issues a policy statement saying it will comply with the Supreme Court’s decision.
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Under the direction of Pine Bluff attorney Wiley Branton, chairman of the state’s NAACP Legal Redress Committee, the NAACP petitions the Little Rock School Board for immediate integration.
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The Little Rock School Board adopts the Blossom Plan of gradual integration beginning with the high school level (starting in September 1957) and the lower grades during the next six years.
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Federal Judge John E. Miller dismisses the NAACP suit (Aaron v. Cooper), declaring that the Little Rock School Board has acted in “utmost good faith” in setting up its plan of gradual integration. In April, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upholds Judge Miller’s dismissal. The federal district court retained jurisdiction over the case, however, making the School Board’s implementation of the Blossom Plan a court mandate.
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Governor Orval Faubus orders the Arkansas National Guard to prohibit African American students from entering Central High School and announces his plans in a televised speech.
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An angry mob of over 1,000 whites gathers in front of Central High School, while nine African American students are escorted inside. The Little Rock police remove the nine children for their safety. President Eisenhower calls the rioting “disgraceful” and ordered federal troops into Little Rock.
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1200 members of the 101st Airborne Division, the “Screaming Eagles” of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, roll into Little Rock. The Arkansas National Guard is placed under federal orders
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"The Little Rock Nine" struggled through their experiences at the little rock central high school, for they were obviously discriminated for their skin color. This was the span of time before a huge event for one of the nine students of the "Little Rock Nine".
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Under troop escort, the “Little Rock Nine” are escorted back into Central High School for their first full day of classes.
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Senior Ernest Green becomes the first African American student to graduate from Central High School. The oldest member of the Little Rock Nine graduated in 1958
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Highlighting numerous discipline problems during the school year, the school board asks the court for permission to delay the desegregation plan in Cooper v. Aaron. Judge Harry Lemley grants the delay of integration until January 1961, stating that while the African American students have a constitutional right to attend white schools, the “time has not come for them to enjoy that right.”
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Citizens vote 19,470 to 7,561 against integration and the schools remain closed.
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The school had finally reopened a month earlir than expected.
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Segregationist members of the school board vote not to renew the contracts of 44 teachers and administrators that said they supported integration.
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The WEC and local businessmen form Stop This Outrageous Purge (STOP) and solicit voter signatures to recall the three segregationist board members. Segregationists form the Committee to Retain Our Segregated Schools (CROSS).Weeks later,STOP wins the recall election in close victory. Three segregationists are voted off the school board and three moderate members are retained.
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In 1997, when President Clinton honored the Little Rock Nine on the 40th anniversary of the integration, community leaders received death threats for mentioning the topic of the crisis, which gave Little Rock a black eye for decades, said Skip Rutherford, head of Clinton's presidential foundation.The federal government designated the school a historic site, a museum was built and Central became the city's most marketed tourism site in the late 1990s.
