On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that segregation in schools was unconstitutional violation of the 14th Amendment, a decision that affected 12 million children in 21 states. Some states, like Kansas and Oklahoma, expected segregation to end with few problems. However, many other states actively opposed the ruling, using force to prevent African Americans from going to schools previously for whites only. The governor of Texas sent in the Texas Rangers to prevent desegregation, while officials in Mississippi and Georgia vowed for total resistance against admitting blacks into white schools. By 1955, more than 500 school districts had been desegregated, but other places faced heavy opposition, especially from groups like the KKK and the White Citizens Council, which boycotted businesses that favored desegregation.
In September 1957, nine African Americans volunteered to go to Central High, a previously white school in Little Rock, Arkansas. The school superintendent, Virgil Blossom, openly backed desegregation, but the governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, opposed desegregation. Faubus ordered the National Guard to turn away the “Little Rock Nine”, but a federal judge ordered Faubus to allow the students to be admitted. President Eisenhower, who did not want to take action earlier, was forced to place the Arkansas National Guard under federal control and ordered a thousand paratroopers into Little Rock to allow the nine students to attend school. In the same month, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson helped pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957, giving the attorney general more power over school desegregation; the law also gave federal government jurisdiction over violation of African-American voting rights.
By Andrew Hwang
That photo is shocking and I like how Eisenhower sent in paratroopers to help the students into the school.
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