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WE, THE PEOPLE SAY

The Little Rock Nine—Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Minnijean Brown, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed, and Melba Pattillo Beals—entered the school three years after the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education, which banned segregation in schools.

On Sept. 25, 1957, nine African-American students in Little Rock, Arkansas were escorted by federal troops into Central High School after they were initially barred from entering by the Arkansas National Guard.

The image of peaceful, brave high-school students making their way through an angry, white, violent mob in order to get the same quality of education as white students became a defining image of the civil-rights era.

ALEX WILSON - TRI-STATE DEFENDER REPORTER PUSHED

A crowd of protesters, reporters, and onlookers watch as Arkansas National Guard troops are dispatched to prevent nine black students from entering Little Rock’s all-white Central High School in 1957.  (AP/William P Straeter)

A protester holds a Confederate flag in front of Little Rock Central High School. (AP/File)

Caucasian girls from Central High School laugh as troopers with bayonets force them to move in 1957. (AP/File)
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