In 1957, Little Rock unexpectedly became the battleground in the first major conflict between state and federal government over race relations . At the time, the city was generally viewed as progressive by Southern standards. All parks, libraries and buses were integrated, a relatively high thirty percent of blacks were on the electoral register, and there were black police officers. However, when the Little Rock School Board announced its decision to phase in desegregation gradually - the Supreme Court having declared segregation of schools to be unconstitutional - James Johnson, a candidate for state governor, started a campaign opposed to interracial education. Johnson's rhetoric began to win him support, and the incumbent governor, Orval Faubus , who had previously shown no interest in the issue, jumped on the bandwagon himself.

The first nine black students were due to enter Central High School that September. The day before school opened, Faubus reversed his decision to let blacks enroll "in the interest of safety," only to be overruled by the federal court. He ordered state troopers to keep out the black students anyway; soldiers with bayonets forced Elizabeth Eckford, one of the nine, away from the school entrance into a seething crowd, from which she had to jump on a bus to escape. As legal battles raged during the day, at night blacks were subject to violent attacks by white gangs. Three weeks later, President Eisenhower somewhat reluctantly brought in the 101st Airborne Division, and, amidst violent demonstrations, the nine were at last able to enter Central High. Throughout the year, they experienced immense intimidation; when one retaliated, she was expelled. The graduation of James Green, the oldest, at the end of the year, seemed to put an end to the affair, but Faubus, up for re-election, renewed his political posturing by closing down all public schools in the city for the 1958-59 academic year - and thereby increased his majority.

The school itself is an enormous brown, crescent-shaped structure, more like a fortress, at 1500 S Park Ave, about a mile from the capitol on bus route #9. There is a visitor center across the street from Central in a historically restored former Mobil gas station that has an interesting exhibit titled, "All the World Is Watching Us: Little Rock and the 1957 Crisis" (Mon-Sat 10am-4pm, Sun 1-4pm; free; tel 501/374-1957 for details on special tours).

Little Rock

• Little Rock
• Practicalities
• Confrontation at Little Rock

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