Little Rock Crisis

The Little Rock Desegregation Crisis was an international symbol of the early American Civil Rights movement in 1957.

Desegregating Little Rock before 1957

The stage for the Little Rock Crisis was set by the U.S. Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The Brown decision overturned the "separate but equal" provisions set up in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), leading to Jim Crow segregation in Little Rock and elsewhere in the American South. The response of the Little Rock School Board and the local chapter of the NAACP is to comply with the Brown decision as an act of "good faith," citing Little Rock's tradition of moderation where race is concerned. New Little Rock School Board superintendent Virgil Blossom gathers together school board members and local leaders in a meeting four days after the Brown decision is reached. Bloom argues that nothing can be done until the Supreme Court issues a ruling on implementation of desegregation, to the disappointment of many at the meeting including black Little Rock State Press news editor L. C. Bates. At a later meeting Bloom explains the NAACP leaders that desegregation cannot proceed until two new high school are built: Hall High School and Horace Mann High School. He pledges to begin desegregating all high schools in September 1957, with elementary schools desegregated beginning around 1960. These pronouncements come to be known as the Blossom Plan.

On May 31, 1955, the Supreme Court issues its implementation decision, which has come to be called Brown II. To the surprise and dismay of many the Court rules ambiguously that integration must proceed "with all deliberate speed" rather than immediately, and puts district courts in charge of enforcement. Soon thereafter Blossom formulates a new plan to integrate only Central High School. Horace Mann is to open as a segregated black school, and Hall is to remain open to whites only. The NAACP votes in December 1955 to sue the school district in federal court. The NAACP suit, called Cooper v. Aaron, is filed on February 8, 1956. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus maintains that efforts to desegregate schools are most appropriately handled at the local level. State's rights activists resist integration on the grounds of interposition: forced federal integration is considered both dangerous and unconstitutional.

In August 1956 Judge John E. Miller sides with the school district's plan in the case of Cooper v. Aaron, noting that the NAACP lawyer U. Simpson Tate had asked for immediate desegregation, while the school board plan followed the Supreme Court directive of "deliberate speed." The decision is appealed to the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals where it is upheld again in the case of Aaron v. Cooper on April 29, 1957. The case is not appealed further, but the NAACP recommends that black students begin enrolling at Central High according to the provisions of the revised Blossom Plan for the fall semester. Segregationists in Little Rock complain that the effects of integration of Central High will fall hardest on working class and poor whites in the city as affluent all-white Hall High School will remain segregated.

On August 22, 1957, local segregationists invite Georgia governor Marvin Griffin to an interpositionist rally in Little Rock. Blossom, Faubus, and other school officials meet to discuss a possible violent backlash if Central High is immediately desegregated.

File:Little-rock-integration.jpg

Four black students are refused entrance to Central High by members of the Arkansas National Guard. September 4, 1957. Photo by LIFE photographer Francis Miller.

The Crisis of 1957-1958

On September 2, 1957, Faubus announces in televised remarks that the Arkansas National Guard will be called out to prevent the integration of Central High, citing the high potential for violent demonstration. The immediate crisis is precipitated on September 4, 1957, as Governor Faubus and the National Guard bars the doors of Central High in order to to prevent nine black students from attending classes. Faubus states that he remains convinced that "[b]lood will run in the streets" if the school is integrated. Student Elizabeth Eckford attempts to enter the school and is turned away.

On September 23, 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower orders 1,000 federal troops into the capitol city to restore order and enforce a federal court order integrating Central High School. A segregationist mob forces local police to lead the students away in the middle of the day. Paratroopers drawn from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division begin escorting nine black students, the Little Rock Nine, to the school doors on September 25, 1957.

On May 27, 1958, senior Ernest Green becomes the first African American graduate of Central High School.

In August 1958 the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a June 21, 1958, order of Judge Lemley, stemming from Cooper v. Aaron, in which the Little Rock School Board through its lawyer Richard C. Butler asks for a two-and-one-half year "cooling off period" before re-initiating the integration process. The Eighth Circuit agrees with the opinion of NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall who argued that the potential for unrest was "preferable to the complete breakdown of education which will result from teaching children that courts of law will bow to violence." The school board appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court reviews the Cooper decision in a special session from August 25-September 29, 1958. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, orders on September 15th that desegregation proceed without delay.

1958: The "Lost Year"

In response to the Supreme Court decision, Faubus closes all four high schools in Little Rock: Horace Mann, Central, Hall, and Technical. Faubus derives his authority from a proclamation of the General Assembly meeting two weeks prior to the issuance of the Court's decision. Faubus also calls for a referendum on the issue of integration in Little Rock public schools.

In a September 27, 1958, referendum Little Rock residents vote 19,470 to 7,561 to keep all the public schools closed rather than accept integration of facilities. This prompts the formation or redoubling of efforts by a number of citizen's action organizations, including the Capital Citizens' Council, the Mother's League of Central High, and the Women's Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools (WEC). All members of the school board resign except for segregationist Dale Alford. Blossom's contract as superintendent is bought out.

Although more than 3,600 black and white students are left without schools to attend, about ninety percent of the white students find other schools to attend inside and outside the district. Many white students begin attending the hastily organized private T. J. Raney High School in October 1958. Little Rock teachers are left with empty classrooms. To pass the time they occasionally teach their subjects to each other. Fifteen teachers begin instructing students and the public on television, but are ordered to stop after one week by a federal court.

In December 1958 school board elections the WEC successfully places three moderates on the board: Ted Lamb, Russell Matson, and Everett Tucker Jr.. Segregationist candidates -- Robert Laster, Ed McKinley Jr., and Ben Rowland -- take the other three seats. In May 1959 the moderate bloc on the board walks out after other board members attempt a purge of teachers with integrationist leanings. Forty four teachers are summarily released at the board meeting. The mass firing prompts male leadership in the city to form the group Stop This Outrageous Purge (STOP). Segregationists form the Committee to Retain Our Segregated Schools (CROSS) in response. Both groups ask for a recall election of current board members. In the ensuing recall election of May 25, 1959, the three segregationist board members are removed and replaced by three moderates endorsed by both the WEC and STOP.

Aftermath and ongoing struggle

The Little Rock Crisis is widely acknowledged as a harbinger of economic hardship and population loss for the city. No major industries entered the local marketplace until the arrival of agricultural and swimming pool pump manufacturer Jacuzzi Brothers in the early 1960s.

Black leaders under Worth Long demanded the desegregation of public and commercial spaces in the city of Little Rock in 1962. Long first met with the Little Rock City Council, and then took his demands to the local Retail Merchant's Association (RMA). The RMA responded by asking the Greater Little Rock Chamber of Commerce to respond to Long's complaints. Chamber member Will Mitchell remembered that at the time "civic leaders did not want the City Board to take any action, for such negotiation might get them into election difficulties."

In October 1962 Bill Hansen announced an imminent sit-in at the Woolworth's lunch counter on Main Street. Little Rock Unlimited Progress director Willard A. Hawkins, faced with ongoing protests, announced that the Chamber of Commerce was creating a special Downtown Negotiating Committee to address the problem. Worthen Bank president James Penick agreed to serve as the chair of this negotiating committee. The committee agreed that downtown businesses must desegregate by January 1, 1963. Apparently unaware of the decision or the deadline or concerned about the strength of promises made, local students launched a sit-in at lunch counters on December 1, 1963. Lunch counters were desegregated on January 1, 1963. Main Street motion picture theaters were desegregated on June 1, 1963. Thirty-eight restaurants desegregated on September 1, 1963; six restaurant owners refused the order.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 which threatened to cut federal funding for schools that refused to make legitimate efforts to desegregate led to a rapid waning of resistance to integration in Little Rock schools. Between 1964 and 1965 the number of African American students in local integrated schools climbed from 213 to 621. By the 1967-1968 school year Central High had enrolled 415 black students, Metropolitan Vocational School had 142, and Hall High School had five.

In an informal survey, members of the Arkansas Historical Association named the Little Rock Crisis the most significant historical event of the twentieth century.

References

• Karen Anderson, "The Little Rock School Desegregation Crisis: Moderation and Social Conflict," Journal of Southern History 70.3 (August 2004): 603-637.
• Tony A. Freyer, Little Rock on Trial: Cooper v. Aaron and School Desegregation, (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007).
• Elizabeth Jacoway and C. Fred Williams, eds., Understanding the Little Rock Crisis: An Exercise in Remembrance and Reconciliation (Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 1999).
• David L. Kirp, "Retreat into Legalism: The Little Rock School Desegregation Case in Historic Perspective," PS, Political Science & Politics 30.3 (September 1997): 443-448.
• Jake Sandlin, "50 Years Ago, High Schools Close to Block Integration," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, September 14, 2008.
• Irving J. Spitzberg, Jr., Racial Politics in Little Rock: 1954-1964 (New York: Garland Publishing Company, 1987).
• Shelby Steele, "The Legacy of Little Rock," Wall Street Journal, September 25, 2007.