Full transcript
0:00The bus boycott, as I said in the
0:02previous clip, rejuvenated the civil
0:06rights movement by demonstrating how
0:09everyday people could involve
0:10themselves. The next hot spot happened
0:14in Little Rock, Arkansas with the
0:16integration of Little Rock Central High
0:18School in 1957.
0:22The NAACP
0:24registered nine black students, the
0:27Little Rock Nine, to attend the
0:29previously all-white Little Rock Central
0:31High School. All the nine students were
0:33selected on the criteria of not only
0:35having parents who would support them
0:38going through this ordeal, but also they
0:40had to have excellent grades and
0:42attendance. So, these are essentially um
0:46you know um all-star students uh the
0:50kind of people who are going to be
0:52successful, the kind of people that the
0:54NAACP
0:55thought they could trust as teenagers
0:57and also they were kids who had the most
0:59gain from going to Little Rock Central.
1:02Little Rock Central was an excellent
1:04high school. Uh it sent kids to Ivy
1:06League schools. Uh it produced uh you
1:10know, college athletes. Uh it it was
1:14really like the pre-minent high school
1:17in Arkansas at the time. So when the
1:20NAACP announced the Little Rock 9, uh
1:25resistance began almost immediately. Uh
1:29the governor of Arkansas at the time was
1:31a man named Orville Fobis. And Fabis
1:34said that there was no way that these
1:36kids were going to go to high school. So
1:39when the NAACP
1:43helped those kids go to school on the
1:46first day of school, Fobas was waiting
1:48with the Arkansas National Guard. So
1:52Fabas calls out the National Guard and
1:54has them block the black students from
1:56entering. Um, also crowds of people
2:01gathered to shout at the kids, to throw
2:03things at them, uh, to encourage white
2:07high school students to
2:09get out and to resist them and to push
2:11at them and to give them a hard time.
2:14Uh, and this happened day after day. Uh,
2:16and the kids get turned away for a
2:19number of days before things come to a
2:22head. Eventually, what happens is that
2:26President Dwight D. Eisenhower, that guy
2:28who said, "We've done all we can do. You
2:31can't change the hearts and minds of
2:32people with laws, decided that enough
2:35was enough. He said, you know, the
2:38Supreme Court has already decided that
2:39if these kids want to go to school here,
2:42they're districted for this school, that
2:44they have to be allowed. So, if you're
2:46going to keep them from that, we have to
2:49enforce uh that right." So Eisenhower
2:53sends in the 101st Airborne to escort
2:56the kids in and to stay on as their
2:59bodyguards. Uh that whole year uh does
3:02not go smoothly. Uh the kids are
3:05regularly attacked. Uh one of them is
3:08expelled after she reacts to a bunch of
3:11boys calling her racist slurs in the
3:14lunchroom. Uh one of the girls has acid
3:17thrown in her eyes during chemistry lab.
3:20her sight saved only because her soldier
3:23bodyguard was there and he got her into
3:24a a chemical wash to get the stuff out
3:26of her eye. Um, you know, that whole
3:29school year is is difficult. They they
3:31get through it, eight of them. Uh, but
3:35that isn't the end of the story. That
3:38summer, Governor Fobis declared high
3:42schools in Little Rock closed. he
3:45actually closed Little Rock Central High
3:47School rather than to let the kids come
3:50back to school at uh the next year.
3:53That's the so-called lost year of 1958
3:56where Little Rock Central simply never
3:59opened its doors. Eventually, a federal
4:02court declared the state school closing
4:04law unconstitutional and the school had
4:07reopened in 1959 with just two of the
4:10original nine students reining. uh
4:12Jefferson Thomas and Carla Walls.
4:16Fobis, by the way, never paid for this
4:19at all. In fact, it got him reelected
4:21another three times until he met his
4:24term limit in the state of Arkansas. But
4:27the Little Rock Central High School
4:30event was important. Um, one, it
4:34demonstrated to grassroots activists
4:36that they could force the federal
4:38government into doing something if they
4:41put their bodies on the line and enforce
4:43the situation. And then perhaps more
4:46importantly for the coming decade, this
4:48made the civil rights movement even
4:52younger. You know, the cool kids were no
4:54longer the kids on American band stand.
4:57They were now the kids who are out there
4:59pushing for their rights.