Remembering the Little Rock Nine

Little Rock Nine and the Fight for Integration

On September 4, 1957, nine Black students arrived at Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. What is seen as an everyday task for most teenagers made history because they attended classes alongside white students. Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Minnijean Brown, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed, and Melba Pattillo Beals, were coined as the Little Rock Nine. What should have been a simple act of going to school turned into one of the battles of the civil rights era.

Three years earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court had issued its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), holding racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Brown v. Bd. of Ed. of Topeka, Shawnee Cnty., Kan., 347 U.S. 483, 495 (1954), supplemented sub nom. Brown v. Bd. of Educ. of Topeka, Kan., 349 U.S. 294 (1955). Following this ruling, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) registered Black students to white-only schools throughout the South. The Little Rock Nine were selected for their high grades and performance.1

Still, resistance to integration was fierce. Siding with segregationists (people who were in favor of keeping spaces “whites only”), Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to block the students from entering the school under the guise of “keeping the peace.”

The confrontation quickly drew national attention, resulting in President Dwight D. Eisenhower to send federal troops from the 101st Airborne Division. While he was initially reluctant to intervene, on September 24, 1957, under armed guard, the Little Rock Nine finally walked into Central High School, marking a turning point in the struggle to enforce school desegregation.2 The nine students faced harassment, physical intimidation, and social isolation from white classmates throughout the year. Even still, Ernest Green was the first Black student to graduate from Little Rock Central High School, proving that Brown v. Board was not just any other court ruling. Their legacy lives on in all Black students, from pre-k to postgrad.

More than sixty years after Little Rock Nine, however, educational inequities continue to exist in integrated schools. Black students continue to face achievement gaps, disproportionate discipline, underfunded schools, and barriers to advanced placement programs and resources. These disparities don’t end at high school graduation, with standardized tests like the SAT and GRE showing stark disparities between Black and white students.3 Black students remain underrepresented and often encounter systemic barriers: from admissions pipelines shaped by legacy preferences and standardized testing, lack of mentorship and financial support, and hostile campus climates not dissimilar to what the Little Rock Nine faced. Following admission to these schools, Black students disproportionately shoulder student debt and experience higher attrition rates compared to their white counterparts.

The story of the Little Rock Nine is not just a historic victory; it is a reminder that the struggle for educational equality is ongoing. As future attorneys, policymakers, and educators, we recognize that while our presence in schools is deserved, it still had to be earned. We walk on the shoulders of Little Rock Nine, continuing to confront these disparities head-on, ensuring that access to education and reaching our professional goals is not just a legal right, but a lived reality.

1 “The 1957–58 School Year,” Little Rock Central High 40th Anniversary, Wayback Machine (archived December 17, 2006), accessed September 2, 2025, https://web.archive.org/web/20061217140900/http://www.centralhigh57.org/1957-58.htm.

2 Dwight D. Eisenhower, Executive Order 10730: Desegregation of Central High School (September 23, 1957), National Archives, accessed September 4, 2025, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/executive-order-10730.

3 Melissa Hellmann, “US Universities Are Reinstating SAT Scores. Experts Say It Will Exacerbate Racial Inequality,” The Guardian, June 20, 2024, last modified June 21, 2024, accessed September 2, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/20/university-require-sat-act-test-diversity.