Little Rock, Arkansas |
By the end of the Brown vs. Board case in 1954, it was illegal to segregate schools. However, many schools did not listen to this new law and continued to segregate. One school in Little Rock, Arkansas became famous because of this. An all white high school called Central High School prevented the Little Rock Nine, a group of nine black students who tried to attend this high school, from entering. Orval Faubus, the governor of Arkansas even activated the National Guard to surround the building and block the nine students from going in along with all of the protesters.
When Eisenhower heard what was happening, he retracted the order to the National Guard and took that power away from the state. He met with Faubus to try and reason with him to no prevail. Eventually, Eisenhower had to mobilize the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock to protect the nine students. This was the first time sin the 1870's that American troops had been used in the South. Three weeks after school started, the students finally got to their classes. The army continued to protect them and take them to school for a year. Even with their help, many injustices were done to the Little Rock Nine. Melba Pattillo later reported that she had acid thrown in her eyes as well as being locked in a girls bathroom stall and having little pieces of burning paper rained down on her. Finally, Ernest Green graduated. |
Sit-Ins |
In Greensboro, NC, a few black men went in to a cafe and asked to be served but instead they were thrown out and arrested. Eventually, a group of civil rights members would essentially sit in on the restaurants and ask to be served until they were arrested, then other members would come and take their place, ask to be served, and get arrested. The big thing about these sit-ins is that they were peaceful. They did not fight back when they were arrested. This made the cafes look very bad because they kept throwing peaceful people out, some of them even white. Eventually, the cafe owners got tired of the peaceful protests and the bad reputation and started serving the blacks.
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Montgomery Bus Boycotts |
Rosa Parks was the one who initiated the Montgomery Bus Boycotts when she refused to get up for a white man that wanted to sit in her spot. The boycotts themselves caused many problems for the bus companies because the people who supported Civil Rights Movement stopped riding them. It was mainly African Americans who rode the bus so when they heard about Rosa Parks and why she got arrested, they stopped ridding. Finally on 5 June 1956, the government designated that segregation on buses went against the 14th amendment and was outlawed. The protests finally ended, it went on for 381 days.
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