Little Rock Nine: Thurgood Marshall And Topeka Board Of Education

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On September 4, 1957 a group of nine African American students attempted to enter the all-white Central High, a school in Little Rock, Arkansas. They faced an angry white mob preventing them from integrating the school. Governor Orval Faubus disobeyed President Eisenhower’s command to allow them to enter and called the National Guard to block them. President Eisenhower took action by sending the 101st Airborne Division to handle the situation. The nine students were finally able to attend school and successfully integrated Central High. Other major players involved in the Little Rock Nine Crisis are Thurgood Marshall, Daisy Bates, and Elizabeth Eckford. Thurgood Marshall was a lawyer and the first African- American Supreme Court Justice.

This case ordered that schools were supposed to begin integrating as soon as this was declared. Through this case, “Marshall and others challenged the idea of ‘separate but equal’ schools” (Tougas 16). On a legal level, Thurgood Marshall was able to change the situation for African Americans trying to get an education. His explanation against separate but equal caused the court to say “school segregation stripped African-American students of educational opportunities and harmed them emotionally” (Tougas 15). The Little Rock School Board already had a plan to bring black students into white students approved. As a final consensus “the justices concluded that ‘in the field of public education the doctrine of separate but equal has no place.’” (McKissack 189) He was a person who thought of the moral aspect of segregation because he realized it was wrong. In contrast to Eisenhower, Thurgood Marshall didn’t try to pass the law because he didn’t want anyone questioning his power or that’s what he was expected to do in that

As president of the NAACP Kansas Chapter, Bates had a huge role in segregation battles including this one. Unlike other figures, Daisy Bates had a lot of direct contact with the nine African American students. She was able to talk to them and notice how they looked and felt and other’s reactions as well. Daisy Bates called all but one of the students the night before to let them know what would happen. As a result, Elizabeth Eckford was clueless and showed up individually to the High School where she was harassed. Daisy Bates and the NAACP took the case to the supreme court. Daisy Bates was the person who organized the students to attend the high school. She handpicked them carefully, speaking to their parents and even winning conversations with some. Her and her husband also had a newspaper where they reported on these kinds of events. Along with her position in the NAACP, her husband “was the publisher of the largest black newspaper in the state; she was his star reporter” (Williams) Inside her house one day, Ernest Greene recalls the media attention and crowds. He also remembers her telling him that “The fact that the president of the United States has sent the United States Army here to escort you into school means that this government is finally serious about school desegregation.'" (Williams). She worked hard for what she believed in and didn’t hesitate