Brown V. Board Of Education Case Study

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In a key event of the American Civil Rights Movement, nine black students enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957, testing a landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The court had mandated that all public schools in the country be integrated “with all deliberate speed” in its decision related to the groundbreaking case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. On September 4, 1957, the first day of classes at Central High, Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas called in the state National Guard to bar the black students’ entry into the school. Later in the month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort the “Little …show more content…

Board of Education) called for the desegregation of public schools across the nation, therefore declaring segregated schools to be unconstitutional (“Little Rock Nine”). The Little Rock school board devised a plan to comply with the schools. This plan would allow for the integration of its schools beginning in the 1957-58 school year. On May 7, 1955, the court also issued an implementation to desegregate all public facilities and accommodations “…with deliberate speed.” (Minter 859-860). In 1957 Seventeen black students passed a screening process but eight withdrew their application on the first day. The remaining nine would attempt to be the first black students to enter central high school escorted by police. (“Little Rock Nine”). On the first day of class, Governor Faubus of arkansas deployed units from the Arkansas National Guard and state police to prevent the nine students from entering the school. The scene made international news, and soon Little Rock was a popular place in the ongoing civil rights struggle. The nine black students stayed home awaiting another chance to return. On September 20, US district judge Ronald Davies issued an injunction against Faubus and National Guard troops for interfering with the school’s efforts to integrate, and ordered Faubus to remove the guard troops. On September 23, the nine students were escorted back to school by local police. However, a mob of parents, and students had assembled in front of the school and threatened to riot when they discovered the nine black students had already entered the building from one of its side entrances. Police were soon overwhelmed and evacuated the students in order to protect them from the violence (“Little Rock

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