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 Part 2 – Chapter 2 – Little Rock Nine (p. 139)

 


READING
Read the text below and find out
 
1. who the Little Rock Nine are.
2. the name of the school and where it is.
3. what happened there in September 1957.
4. whether the nine students completed their courses at Central High School.
5. what happened in the fall of 1958.

The Little Rock Nine
The story of the Little Rock Nine was one of the most famous cases of integration of African Americans and a milestone in the fight for equal education.
 
From the press: 25 September 1957
 
1957: Troops end Little Rock school crisis
Nine black children have finally been able to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. But they had to be surrounded by more than 1,000 US paratroopers to protect them from segregationist whites.
On the orders of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the troops arrived last night in full battledress with fixed bayonets and rifles and took over from local police following three weeks of disturbances.
The children, six girls and three boys, had to walk through a cordon to get to the school building. Outside about 1,500 whites demonstrated and at least seven were arrested.
 
Symbol of southern resistance
In 1954 The US Supreme Court ruled segregated schools were unconstitutional. But Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus refused to abide by the ruling. Little Rock became the symbol of southern resistance to government attempts to desegregate American society.
On 2 September this year (1957, NdR) the governor ordered Arkansas state troops to stop the nine black children attending school. Three weeks later he was forced to withdraw them by a federal judge. But a white mob took over the streets and the mayor of the city appealed to the president to help to control the situation.
The southern governors are meeting today to find a way to persuade the president to withdraw the troops. After yesterday’s disturbances, the city was calm. But once the troops are gone it is feared the white mob may retaliate against the 30,000 black residents at Little Rock, especially leaders of the NAACP.

 
Although all of the Nine endured verbal and physical harassment during their year at Central, Minnijean Brown was the only one to respond; she was first suspended and then expelled. Brown moved to New York City and graduated from New Lincoln High School in 1959. The other eight students remained at Central until the end of the school year.
On May 27, 1958, Ernest Green became Central’s first black graduate. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. attended his graduation ceremony.
Before schools opened in the fall of 1958, Faubus closed all the high schools to prevent further desegregation efforts, forcing the African American students to take correspondence courses or go to out-of-state schools.
Governor Faubus’ resistance to integration was popular with locals and he remained governor for the next ten years. In 1986 he ran for governor once more but was beaten by Bill Clinton.
Today, Little Rock Central High School is sixty percent black.
 
(Adapted from «BBC ON THIS DAY», 25 September, 2011)
 
 
Questo file è un’estensione online del corso M. G. Dandini, NEW SURFING THE WORLD.
Copyright © 2010 Zanichelli Editore S.p.A., Bologna [1056]