Civil Rights Movement In Maya Angelou's Little Rock Nine

Angelou's memoir also addresses the battle African Americans underwent in order to fulfill Civil Rights in the 20th century. The Civil Rights Movement worked for equal rights for all people, in particular African Americans. The movement demanded equal rights in the workforce, housing, government, and education (Richard). A major event that illustrated the momentum of the Civil Rights Movement was Little Rock Nine. Little Rock Nine occured when a group of nine African American students were nominated on account of their grades to attend Little Rock Central High School, the first school to desegregate. As soon as the nine students arrived to the campus they were surrounded by the National Guard and an outraged mob blocking the African American from entering the school. The demonstrations were so extreme that the students had a 101st airborne division to

Edward Donleavy’s speech at Angelou’s 8th grade promotion: “A well-known artist was coming from Little Rock to teach art to them … Owens and the Brown Bomber were great heroes in our world, but what school officials in the white goddom of Little Rock had the right to decide that those two men must be our only heroes?”(151). Mr. Edward Donleavy racist oration implies that history repeats itself. Education is still segregated in terms of the programs white or African Americans were offered : “The Central School (naturally the the white school) … were going to have the newest microscopes and chemistry equipment … We were maids and farmers, handymen and washerwomen, and anything higher was to farcical and presumptions” (Angelou 151 - 152). African Americans despite the fact that one African American student graduated from Little Rock Center School and that African Americans are now authorized to enroll in institutions with whites, African Americans nevertheless failed to obtain full Civil Rights due to insufficient opportunities in the workforce and