The Little Rock Nine

“And these children that you spit on as they try to change their world,

Are immune to your consultation; they’re quite aware of what they’re going through.”

“Changes” - David Bowie

In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education had just been settled, but many states disagreed with the ruling. In fact, the Supreme Court had to issue a second decision that ordered schools to integrate “with all deliberate speed” in 1955. Even with both rulings, the state of Arkansas wouldn’t do much until 1957 when those in charge of the state began gradually integrating schools in September of that year (1). In the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, the biggest strides towards racial equality and justice were taken by the youngest of Americans.

Whether they want to be there or not, teenagers’ first day of high school is important. Elementary school and middle school are over, and it’s time to begin an exciting new chapter. But while the first day of school may be filled with celebration for some students, those attending school during the civil rights movement that looked a bit different from their white classmates may not be able to share such heartwarming stories.

Elizabeth Eckford was 15 years old when she arrived for her first day of high school. Wearing a mostly white dress with black and white plaid trim and a pair of circular spectacles, she arrived alone at Little Rock’s Central High School. Unable to reach the group of students she had planned to carpool with that morning, she sat patiently by herself outside the school. However, Elizabeth’s time spent waiting did not involve sitting on a bench reading a book or chatting with other students; she was instead harassed and tormented by those who surrounded her. As she was getting screamed at and even spit on, she remained calm. To the students that surrounded her, she was a waste of space. She was not supposed to be there. She was a Black girl now attending a school filled with white students that were against integration (2).

Before the first day of school, Daisy Bates, the leader of the Little Rock school integration project, along with others involved in the Arkansas National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) searched for a group of Black students that held the determination, strength, and resistance that would be necessary to withstand the treatment they would surely receive by attending a school made up of mostly white students. Along with Elizabeth Eckford, the chosen students in the project were Miinijean Brown, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Patillo, Gloria Gray, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas, and Carlotta Walls. It was decided that this group would attend Central High School at the beginning of the 1957 school year, and because they did so, this group is now seen as heroes and icons of the civil rights movement. They are most commonly referred to as the Little Rock Nine (3).

Orval Faubus was the governor of Arkansas at the time, and when he heard tell of the Little Rock Nine, he ordered the Arkansas National Guard to go to the school and stop them from entering. Regardless, once the other Black students met with Eckford on the first day of school, they encountered mobs of white students shouting at them, even taking the initiative to create a new chant--“Two, four, six, eight, we ain’t gonna integrate!”

Faubus’ wishes also came true as the Arkansas National Guard initially blocked the students from entering. Fourteen hours away in Washington, D.C., President Dwight Eisenhower heard about what had happened to the students. To protect them, he sent a total of 1200 soldiers to Little Rock. “Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of the courts!” he proclaimed. Now with the military on their side, each student was assigned an escort at school.

Before that, though, harassment towards the students was horrendous. None of the Black students were allowed to partake in after-school activities due to the ever-present danger and hostility; Patillo had acid thrown in her face, and the group of students was often pushed down flights of stairs, spat on, called insults like “baboon,” and had their books knocked out of their hands. The white students even burnt an African American effigy in a vacant lot across from the school to hit their point home. While soldiers were allowed to escort the Little Rock Nine in and out of the school and to and from classes, they were not permitted to be near them in the bathroom or classroom, making these locations prime spots for harassment, and in some cases, outright torture.

Reflection

From its depictions of the Vietnam War, the near-assassination of Ronald Reagan, the “truth” of how authorities discovered the Watergate scandal, and the inclusion of a certain blonde side character that many oppose but I can’t help but love based on how complex she is written paired with the fact that I find many similarities with her personality-wise (a topic that will be further explored sometime far down the road), Forrest Gump has always been in my top three favorite movies since I watched it for the first time.

Forrest, played by Tom Hanks, is an easy-to-love character for so many reasons. His mental disabilities are not really played off as weaknesses as in many instances they are his strengths. Throughout the movie, he is often oblivious to everything (like when he moons President Lyndon B. Johnson), yet he always finds a way to do what’s right, a prime example being the moment he saves his entire battalion of fellow soldiers in Vietnam.

I just recently revisited the film before writing this reflection, and I was caught off guard by a scene I had forgotten about. Near the beginning of the movie while Forrest is attending the University of Alabama, there is a scene depicting a situation very similar to the Little Rock Nine’s--a group of Black students, per the movie’s depiction, is not met with the same level of harassment as the Little Rock Nine as they are escorted into the school, but a crowd of white students stares at them with wide eyes and jaws dropped.

Forrest asks a fellow classmate what is happening, and his classmate says, “The coons are trying to get into school.” Forrest replies with the advice given to him in an earlier situation--just shoo the “coons” off the back porch with a broom!--to which his classmate responds, “Not coons… n*****s!” Forrest reacts with confusion as to why Black students would want to go to school with white students, and while he questions the notion, he sees no real issue with it as depicted by him not only walking in with the Black students but helping a female Black student by picking up her dropped notebook without a care in the world.

The Little Rock Nine and the topic of children growing up with more inclusive ideals bring up another idea prevalent in America and all around the world. From issues like social justice to Greta Tunberg’s ‘Skolstrejk for klimatet’, many young people are at the reigns, leading the way through the protest. Growing Leaders, a blog with contributions by notable sources like Psychology Today, Forbes, CNN, and other sources like Fox News, dove into this topic with the article “Seven Reasons Why So Many Teens Are Involved in Protests”. One reason is that adults let teens down by allowing discrimination to happen. Another reason is that while teens are protesting against the establishment as their parents did, their parents ended up becoming a part of that very establishment. Reasons also include their parents sharing great messages like “stand up for your values'', which is what they feel they are doing by protesting, as well as parents sharing not so great messages by calling them privileged or naive to the real world, which leads to young people feeling the need to share their views and educate themselves extensively. Here’s another good reason the article offers: many teens blame their parents and the older generation for not teaching them all they needed to know about racial injustice, which has led to the worsening of problems like police brutality and voter suppression (5).

Many young people, including those who are raised in oppressive households, can be easily introduced to different points of view through online communities and research, school, friends, and sometimes even family. As long as issues like systemic racism keep evolving in America today with certain politicians doing nothing but aiding the issue, America can expect its youngest citizens to keep fighting back.

In June 2020 when COVID-19 cases were just beginning to rise every day in America’s second wave, Donald Trump decided to host a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Expecting a large crowd, Trump must’ve been excited about the rally, but sources all over the country were soon saying that “he yelled at aides backstage at the endless rows of empty blue seats in the upper bowl of the stadium” (6).

News soon got out about Trump’s smaller than expected campaign rally, leading Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to tweet in response to false claims stating that Black Lives Matter protests helped contribute to the crowd’s less than average size, “Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID - Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud 😊” (7).

It would make sense that Ocasio-Cortez, better known as AOC, would tweet such a statement as many of her policies are heavily supported by younger Americans. As she explained in her tweet, TikTok users who are mostly teens, the one demographic that seems to despise Trump the most, registered for tickets to attend the rally without the intention to attend it. Trump’s ego was a hallmark of his presidency, so the teens decided that it was the best way to protest the Trump Administration.

Much like the Little Rock Nine and really all the other civil rights activists explored throughout the past two weeks, young people have a willingness to fight back when they want to. And looking at the numbers of people aged 18-29 that voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 election, a demographic that had a 10% increase from 2016, 61% of young people in the election voted for Biden. The overall message is, young people are watching, and the means of how they can watch will only increase as the years go on. Another example would be Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. Even though Greene, the same person who was recorded harassing a school shooting survivor, was seen kicked off of committees, many donors still support her, as well as many Republicans. Who knows? Because of this, even though it has often happened that the party opposite the party in the White House goes onto win Senate and/or House Majority in those elections during a presidential term, the actions seen right now can and will be remembered, and America could see a blue wave similar to the one that hit in 2018.

Sources and Links

The Little Rock Nine

Recent Posts

Comments