Arkansas Museum Retells 1957 Civil Rights Victory
June 13, 2000
Arkansas Museum Retells
1957 Civil Rights Victory
*****
By Jim Taylor, travel writer
Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism
"I tried to see a friendly face somewhere in the mob -- someone who maybe would help. I looked into the face of an old woman and it seemed a kind face, but when I looked at her again, she spat on me." -- Elizabeth Eckford, Little Rock Nine
LITTLE ROCK -- In September, 1957, the nation watched while television news -- then in its early years – seared images of a segregationist mob's racial hatred into America's consciousness. The images came from the grounds of Little Rock's Central High School, where nine African-American teenagers were seeking to become the school's first black students.
Forty years later, in September, 1997, those students, who had become known as the Little Rock Nine, gathered again and were honored for their courage as the Central High Museum and Visitors Center was dedicated by President Bill Clinton and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. The following year, Central High was designated a National Historic Site to be administered by the National Parks Service.
The museum is located across the street from the school at West 14th and Park Streets in a former Mobil Oil service station restored to appear as it did in 1957. It houses an exhibit entitled "All the World Is Watching Us: Little Rock and the 1957 Crisis."
The exhibit begins by reviewing almost a century of events that led up to the 1957 school crisis and to the modern civil rights movement as a whole. Topics covered include the post-Civil War amendments to the U.S. Constitution that legally granted African-Americans equal rights, the emergence of racial segregation as a social pattern later enacted into law and the U.S. Supreme Court's 1895 decision approving racially segregated schools with "separate but equal" facilities.
The immediate impetus for the Central High crisis came in 1954 when the Supreme Court, in the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, overturned the 1895 decision by holding that segregated public schools were unconstitutional. The exhibit traces the legal efforts of the Arkansas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to secure the desegregation of Little Rock schools in the wake of the Brown decision. Those efforts came to fruition in 1957.
The ensuing struggle pitted then-Arkansas Gov. Orval E. Faubus, who called out the Arkansas National Guard that September 4 to block the students' entry in the name of "safety," against U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was forced on September 24 to send in troops from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division to guarantee the students their constitutional rights.
Through poster-size enlargements of photographs, projected front pages of Arkansas newspapers and a '50's era television playing clips of Faubus and Eisenhower from 1957 broadcasts, the museum recreates the drama of the confrontation -- governmental for Eisenhower and Faubus, personal for the nine teenagers trying to gain admittance to the school.
Getting into Central High was not the last danger faced by the Little Rock Nine. A museum timeline notes mistreatment they received from some of their fellow students, as well as noting that white students were abused if they demonstrated kindness to the nine.
In May, 1958, Ernest Green, the only senior in the group, would become the first African-American to graduate from Central. In quiet attendance at the graduation ceremony was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Central High was an early, high-profile victory for the modern civil rights movement and gave Eisenhower a chance to demonstrate the federal commitment to seeing the Supreme Court's Brown decision implemented. Yet, as the museum exhibit makes clear, it would never have happened without the courage of the Little Rock Nine -- Eckford, Green, Minnijean Brown, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Patillo, Gloria Ray, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas and Carlotta Walls.
The museum's hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1 to 4 p.m. on Sundays. It is closed only on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Days. Admission is free and there is convenient parking for buses and autos.
For more information on the museum, including its special tours, phone (501) 374-1957 or write P.O. Box 390, Little Rock, AR 72203. For Arkansas travel information, visit www.arkansas.com or call 1-800-NATURAL.
####
Submitted by the Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism
One Capitol Mall, Little Rock, AR 72201, (501) 682-7606
E-mail: info@arkansas.com
May be used without permission. Credit line is appreciated:
"Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism"
Arkansas Museum Retells
1957 Civil Rights Victory
*****
By Jim Taylor, travel writer
Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism
"I tried to see a friendly face somewhere in the mob -- someone who maybe would help. I looked into the face of an old woman and it seemed a kind face, but when I looked at her again, she spat on me." -- Elizabeth Eckford, Little Rock Nine
LITTLE ROCK -- In September, 1957, the nation watched while television news -- then in its early years – seared images of a segregationist mob's racial hatred into America's consciousness. The images came from the grounds of Little Rock's Central High School, where nine African-American teenagers were seeking to become the school's first black students.
Forty years later, in September, 1997, those students, who had become known as the Little Rock Nine, gathered again and were honored for their courage as the Central High Museum and Visitors Center was dedicated by President Bill Clinton and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. The following year, Central High was designated a National Historic Site to be administered by the National Parks Service.
The museum is located across the street from the school at West 14th and Park Streets in a former Mobil Oil service station restored to appear as it did in 1957. It houses an exhibit entitled "All the World Is Watching Us: Little Rock and the 1957 Crisis."
The exhibit begins by reviewing almost a century of events that led up to the 1957 school crisis and to the modern civil rights movement as a whole. Topics covered include the post-Civil War amendments to the U.S. Constitution that legally granted African-Americans equal rights, the emergence of racial segregation as a social pattern later enacted into law and the U.S. Supreme Court's 1895 decision approving racially segregated schools with "separate but equal" facilities.
The immediate impetus for the Central High crisis came in 1954 when the Supreme Court, in the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, overturned the 1895 decision by holding that segregated public schools were unconstitutional. The exhibit traces the legal efforts of the Arkansas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to secure the desegregation of Little Rock schools in the wake of the Brown decision. Those efforts came to fruition in 1957.
The ensuing struggle pitted then-Arkansas Gov. Orval E. Faubus, who called out the Arkansas National Guard that September 4 to block the students' entry in the name of "safety," against U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was forced on September 24 to send in troops from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division to guarantee the students their constitutional rights.
Through poster-size enlargements of photographs, projected front pages of Arkansas newspapers and a '50's era television playing clips of Faubus and Eisenhower from 1957 broadcasts, the museum recreates the drama of the confrontation -- governmental for Eisenhower and Faubus, personal for the nine teenagers trying to gain admittance to the school.
Getting into Central High was not the last danger faced by the Little Rock Nine. A museum timeline notes mistreatment they received from some of their fellow students, as well as noting that white students were abused if they demonstrated kindness to the nine.
In May, 1958, Ernest Green, the only senior in the group, would become the first African-American to graduate from Central. In quiet attendance at the graduation ceremony was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Central High was an early, high-profile victory for the modern civil rights movement and gave Eisenhower a chance to demonstrate the federal commitment to seeing the Supreme Court's Brown decision implemented. Yet, as the museum exhibit makes clear, it would never have happened without the courage of the Little Rock Nine -- Eckford, Green, Minnijean Brown, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Patillo, Gloria Ray, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas and Carlotta Walls.
The museum's hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1 to 4 p.m. on Sundays. It is closed only on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Days. Admission is free and there is convenient parking for buses and autos.
For more information on the museum, including its special tours, phone (501) 374-1957 or write P.O. Box 390, Little Rock, AR 72203. For Arkansas travel information, visit www.arkansas.com or call 1-800-NATURAL.
Submitted by the Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism
One Capitol Mall, Little Rock, AR 72201, (501) 682-7606
E-mail: info@arkansas.com
May be used without permission. Credit line is appreciated:
"Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism"
Submitted by the Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism
One Capitol Mall, Little Rock, AR 72201, 501-682-7606
E-mail: info@arkansas.com
May be used without permission. Credit line is appreciated:
"Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism"