Civil Rights Movement

Several segregationist "citizens' councils" threatened to hold protests at Central High and physically block the black students from entering the school. In response, Governor Orval Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to support the segregationists on September 4, 1957. The sight of a line of soldiers blocking nine black students from attending high school made national headlines and polarized the city. On September 9, "The Council of Church Women" issued a statement condemning the governor's deployment of soldiers to the high school and called for a citywide prayer service on September 12. Even President Dwight Eisenhower attempted to de-escalate the situation and summoned Governor Faubus to meet him. The President warned the governor not to interfere with the Supreme Court's ruling.

Attorneys from the U.S. Justice Department requested an injunction against the governor's deployment of the National Guard from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas in Little Rock. Judge Ronald Davies granted the injunction and ordered the governor to withdraw the National Guard on September 20.

Members of the 101st US-Airborne Division escorting the Little Rock Nine to schoolThe governor backed down and withdrew the National Guard, and the Little Rock Police Department took their place. Hundreds of protesters, mostly parents of the white students attending Central High, remained entrenched in front of the school. On Monday, September 23, the police quietly slipped the nine students into the school. When the protesters learned that the nine black students were inside, they began confronting the outnumbered line of policemen. When white residents began to riot, the nine students were escorted out of the school.

The next day, Woodrow Mann, the Mayor of Little Rock, asked President Eisenhower to send federal troops to enforce integration and protect the nine students. On September 24, the President ordered the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to Little Rock and federalized the entire 10,000 member Arkansas National Guard, taking it out of the hands of Governor Faubus. The 101st took positions immediately, and the nine students successfully entered the school on the next day, Wednesday, September 25, 1957.

An ad hoc unit, Task Force 153rd Infantry, was hastily organized at Camp Robinson from guardsmen drawn from units statewide. The bulk of the Arkansas Guard was quickly discharged from federalized status, but Task Force 153rd Infantry remained, taking over the entire operation when the paratroopers left at Thanksgiving, and remaining on duty until the end of the school year.

By the end of September 1957, the nine were admitted to Little Rock Central High under the protection of the U.S. Army (and later the Arkansas National Guard), but they were still subjected to a year of physical and verbal abuse (spitting on them, calling them names) by many of the white students. One of the students, Minnijean Brown, was verbally confronted by a group of white, male students in December 1957 in the school cafeteria during lunch. She had dropped a bowl of chili on a boy's head and was suspended from school, and later expelled for calling a white girl "white trash". She later transferred to New Lincoln High School in New York City.

The citizens' council continued to protest and pressured the Little Rock School Board into reversing its decision to desegregate the public schools. In August 1958, with support from Governor Faubus and the Arkansas State Legislature, the school board canceled the entire 1958-59 school year for its three high schools rather than integrate them. Thousands of high school students left the city to attend high schools in other school districts, or enrolled in all-white private schools. One year later, additional federal court rulings and the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce pressured the school board into reopening the school system. By the fall of 1959, Little Rock public schools had reopened as an integrated school system.

During their ordeal, the Little Rock Nine were advised by Little Rock journalist and activist Daisy Bates. Bates and the Little Rock Nine received the Spingarn Medal in 1958. The Little Rock Nine were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal on November 9, 1999. Little Rock Central High School still functions as part of the Little Rock School District, and is now a National Historic Site that houses a Civil Rights Museum, administered in partnership with the National Park Service, to commemorate the events of 1957. In 1981, the TV movie Crisis at Central High dramatized the events of the crisis. In 1996, seven of the Little Rock Nine appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show. They came face to face with a few of the white students who had tormented them as well as one student who had befriended them. In 2007, the United States Mint made available a commemorative silver dollar to "recognize and pay tribute to the strength, the determination and the courage displayed by African-American high school students in the fall of 1957." The obverse depicts students accompanied by a soldier, with nine stars symbolizing the Little Rock Nine. The reverse depicts an image of Little Rock Central High School, circa 1957. Proceeds from the coin sales are to be used to improve the National Historic Site.