‘I Had a Right to Be at Central’: Remembering Little Rock’s Integration Battle

It was late September 1957, and students at Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas had been in class for three weeks. Everyone, that is, but 14-year-old Carlotta Walls and eight other teenagers who were to be Central High’s first black students. They had been prevented from entering the school by an angry mob of citizens, backed up by a group of Arkansas National Guardsmen. But on Sept. 25, under escort by federal troops, Carlotta and her classmates walked up the front steps of Central High and into history. They became the highest-profile black students in the United States to integrate a formerly all-white school. This month, Little Rock will celebrate the 60th anniversary of that pivotal moment in the civil rights movement by honoring the students who became known as the Little Rock Nine, with events including speeches by eight of the students as well as former president and Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. For Carlotta Walls LaNier, the anniversary is a chance to raise awareness about the fight for racial equality. “Our purpose is for people today to understand why [kids] are sitting in classrooms with those who don’t look like them,” she tells TIME. “It was due to our success at Central 60 years ago.” The School Year That Made History Three years earlier, the Supreme Court had ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that school segregation was unconstitutional, but many areas, like Little Rock, refused to put that decision into actio...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Civil Rights Education segregation Source Type: news