No Negroes Allowed
On this day just 55 years ago, the Arkansas National Guard, armed and in battle uniform, stood before Little Rock Central High School to prevent nine African-American children from entering. It was not one of our nation's prouder moments.
In 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that the "separate but equal" standard of the 1896 decision. Plessy v. Ferguson, was inherently unequal. In 1955, the High Court ordered that schools be integrated "with all deliberate speed."
All deliberate speed didn't move too fast. Brown v. Board of Education was an unpopular decision. Less than half of Americans (61% of Northerners and 15% of Southerners) believed that whites and blacks should attend the same schools.
In 1955, Tennessee Governor Frank Clement had to call out the National Guard after white mobs tried to block the desegregation of a high school. That same year, the Virginia legislator called for "massive resistance" to desegregation and threatened to close the schools under desegregation orders. And still in 1955, the University of Alabama bowed to court order and admitted its first black student. White students rioted. The school later found reason to expel her.
And so we come to 1957. The Little Rock School District planned a gradual desegregation beginning at Central High. They asked for volunteers, and nine black teenagers stepped forward.
That did not suit Governor Orval Faubus, who called in the Arkansas National Guard to block the doors of the school. District Judge Ronald Davies ordered the school board to proceed anyway, but Governor Faubus ignored the court order. When the nine black students arrived on the morning of September 4th, they were met by an angry white mob and armed soldiers.
Eight of the kids arrived together, but one travelled alone: a fifteen-year-old girl named Elizabeth Eckford, who found herself surrounded by the mob. She recalled, “I tried to see a friendly face somewhere in the mob-someone who maybe would help. I looked into the face of an old woman and it seemed a kind face, but when I looked at her again, she spat on me.”
Judge Davies ordered Faubus to withdraw the National Guard, and U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. filed an injunction against both the Arkansas governor and the Arkansas Guard. President Eisenhower called Faubus personally and demanded he back down.
On September 20th, the Guard withdrew and the black students were allowed to enter the school on September 23rd. A mob of angry white men and women overpowered the police and attacked black reporters. The students were withdrawn from school for their own safety.
By September 24th, President Eisenhower had had enough. He issued Executive Order 10730, which federalized the Arkansas National Guard and odered the Army's 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock. A thousand paratroopers provided protection and the children were able to enter the school safely on September 25th. They remained under federal protection for the rest of the year.
You'd think that would be the end. Sadly, it wasn't. In 1958, Governor Faubus and the segregationists won a court decision that delayed integration until 1961. The Supreme Court overruled it and ordered integration to continue that September. Governor Faubus then closed down four Little Rock public schools, and allowed them to be used as "private" schools. Whites only, of course.
Three of the segregationists on the school board were removed by a recall election, and the schools were finally reopened in 1959.
And that was just Little Rock. In 1962, a man named George Wallace won the governor's seat in Alabama by a landslide. In his inaugural speech of January 14th, 1963, he said, In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!
This wasn't just a Southern problem. I am ashamed to report that, only a few miles from my home, nice Catholic mothers were throwing rocks at school bus windows in protest to Federal Judge Walter Garrity's order to integrate schools by busing students to other schools in the district. Riots protesting busing went on into the Seventies.
It's taken a while, but I think we've become a better nation since then. If only we can hold it.
In 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that the "separate but equal" standard of the 1896 decision. Plessy v. Ferguson, was inherently unequal. In 1955, the High Court ordered that schools be integrated "with all deliberate speed."
All deliberate speed didn't move too fast. Brown v. Board of Education was an unpopular decision. Less than half of Americans (61% of Northerners and 15% of Southerners) believed that whites and blacks should attend the same schools.
In 1955, Tennessee Governor Frank Clement had to call out the National Guard after white mobs tried to block the desegregation of a high school. That same year, the Virginia legislator called for "massive resistance" to desegregation and threatened to close the schools under desegregation orders. And still in 1955, the University of Alabama bowed to court order and admitted its first black student. White students rioted. The school later found reason to expel her.
And so we come to 1957. The Little Rock School District planned a gradual desegregation beginning at Central High. They asked for volunteers, and nine black teenagers stepped forward.
That did not suit Governor Orval Faubus, who called in the Arkansas National Guard to block the doors of the school. District Judge Ronald Davies ordered the school board to proceed anyway, but Governor Faubus ignored the court order. When the nine black students arrived on the morning of September 4th, they were met by an angry white mob and armed soldiers.
Eight of the kids arrived together, but one travelled alone: a fifteen-year-old girl named Elizabeth Eckford, who found herself surrounded by the mob. She recalled, “I tried to see a friendly face somewhere in the mob-someone who maybe would help. I looked into the face of an old woman and it seemed a kind face, but when I looked at her again, she spat on me.”
Judge Davies ordered Faubus to withdraw the National Guard, and U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. filed an injunction against both the Arkansas governor and the Arkansas Guard. President Eisenhower called Faubus personally and demanded he back down.
On September 20th, the Guard withdrew and the black students were allowed to enter the school on September 23rd. A mob of angry white men and women overpowered the police and attacked black reporters. The students were withdrawn from school for their own safety.
By September 24th, President Eisenhower had had enough. He issued Executive Order 10730, which federalized the Arkansas National Guard and odered the Army's 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock. A thousand paratroopers provided protection and the children were able to enter the school safely on September 25th. They remained under federal protection for the rest of the year.
You'd think that would be the end. Sadly, it wasn't. In 1958, Governor Faubus and the segregationists won a court decision that delayed integration until 1961. The Supreme Court overruled it and ordered integration to continue that September. Governor Faubus then closed down four Little Rock public schools, and allowed them to be used as "private" schools. Whites only, of course.
Three of the segregationists on the school board were removed by a recall election, and the schools were finally reopened in 1959.
And that was just Little Rock. In 1962, a man named George Wallace won the governor's seat in Alabama by a landslide. In his inaugural speech of January 14th, 1963, he said, In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!
This wasn't just a Southern problem. I am ashamed to report that, only a few miles from my home, nice Catholic mothers were throwing rocks at school bus windows in protest to Federal Judge Walter Garrity's order to integrate schools by busing students to other schools in the district. Riots protesting busing went on into the Seventies.
It's taken a while, but I think we've become a better nation since then. If only we can hold it.