The Little Rock Nine, 1957

In September 1957, nine Black students prepared to enter Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas under a federal court desegregation plan. Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to block them, and when the students tried to enter they faced angry crowds; fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Eckford, arriving alone, was surrounded and threatened.

The standoff became a test of federal authority. President Dwight Eisenhower, who had not been an outspoken supporter of desegregation, sent soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division and federalized the Arkansas Guard to enforce the court order.

The students, supported by NAACP leader Daisy Bates, endured harassment throughout the year, and Ernest Green became the school's first Black graduate in May 1958. Little Rock's high schools were then closed for the 1958–59 school year to avoid integration. The crisis showed that federal power could enforce rights, and that television images could shape national opinion.