Little Rock Nine

Little Rock Nine
Part of the Civil Rights Movement
The "Little Rock Nine" are escorted inside Little Rock Central High School by troops of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army.
Location	Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas
Causes	Racial segregation in public schools Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
Result	Cooper v. Aaron (1958)
Parties to the civil conflict
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Little Rock Nine Governor of Arkansas
Lead figures
NAACP member Daisy Bates Little Rock Nine Melba Pattillo Beals Minnijean Brown Elizabeth Eckford Ernest Green Gloria Ray Karlmark Carlotta Walls LaNier Thelma Mothershed Terrence Roberts Jefferson Thomas State of Arkansas Orval Faubus, governor

NAACP member

Little Rock Nine

State of Arkansas

The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. They then attended after the intervention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued its historic Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 347 U.S. 483, on May 17, 1954. Tied to the 14th Amendment, the decision declared all laws establishing segregated schools to be unconstitutional, and it called for the desegregation of all schools throughout the nation. After the decision, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attempted to register black students in previously all-white schools in cities throughout the South. In Little Rock, the capital city of Arkansas, the Little Rock School Board agreed to comply with the high court's ruling. Virgil Blossom, the Superintendent of Schools, submitted a plan of gradual integration to the school board on May 24, 1955, which the board unanimously approved. The plan would be implemented during the fall of the 1957 school year, which would begin in September 1957.