The Little Rock Crisis

In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was legal for schools to be segregated. This meant that there could be schools just for white children and schools just for black children. However, the schools for black children were always worse than the others.

Then, a lawyer called Thutgood Marshall who represented black people fought against segregation and finally he won and made segregation illegal.

But some shcools in the South didn`t allow black students like Central High School in the Little Rock, Arkansas. The plan was to integrate slowly black children but they refused.

With the help of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), nine black children managed to attend a school for whites. The nine students were Elizabeth Eckford, Minnijean Brown, Gloria Ray, Terrance Roberts, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Jefferson Thomas, Melba Patillo and Carlotta Walls. These students became known as the Little Rock Nine.

by: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rock_Nine

When the students arrived there were people shouting at them. They told them to go away and that they didn`t want them there. In addition to other students, there were National Guard soldiers blocking their way into the school, so the U.S Army came to protect black students.

It was a really difficult year for them, they were bullied even when they protected by the Army and only one of them got graduated.

After the first year, the Arkansas governor closed all the public high schools in Little Rock because he decided that it was better to have no school at all than to have integrated schools. When the schools reopened, many people blamed The Little Rock for causing them to miss a shcool year.

The results of the Little Rock Nine`s actions were not inmediately positive, but later this became a very important event in the history of the fight for the Civil Rights of the black people.

In our opinion everybody is equal so segregation had to end because treating black people in a different way than white people was unfair and terrible.

Black people deserve the same Civil Rights as white!

Mª Ángeles Merino
Julia Báez
Alejandro García
Diego Gutiérrez