Key events leading to the integration of Little Rock Central High

1954

MAY 17 U.S. Supreme Court rules in Brown vs.

Board of Education that state laws mandating public school segregation are unconstitutional.

MAY 18 Gov. Francis Cherry says Arkansas will “comply with the requirements” of the Supreme Court.

AUG. 23 Public schools in Charleston, Ark. enroll 11 black students, making it first in the former Confederate states to end school segregation.

1956

JAN. 23 Twenty-seven black students working with the NAACP are turned away when they try to enroll at four Little Rock schools.

AUG. 28 U.S. District Judge John E. Miller upholds the Little Rock School Board’s plan for gradual desegregation in a federal lawsuit filed by black parents.

1957

APRIL 29 A federal appellate court upholds the Little Rock School Board’s gradual desegregation plan.

AUG. 29 Pulaski County Chancellor Murray O. Reed temporarily enjoins the Little Rock School District from enrolling black students at Central based on testimony about possible violence.

AUG. 30 U.S. District Judge Ronald Davies orders the school district to proceed with gradual

integration.

SEPT. 1 On the night before school starts and at the call of Gov. Orval Faubus, who cited the potential for violence, National Guard and state police surround Central; the district asks black students to stay away until matter resolved.

SEPT. 4 National Guardsmen block black students from entering Central, despite federal judge’s order that integration proceed. Jeering crowd follows Elizabeth Eckford, one of the black students, to a bus stop.

SEPT. 14 Faubus meets privately with President Dwight Eisenhower at Newport, R.I., about school integration.

SEPT. 20 After three weeks, National Guard members leave Central on federal court order to Faubus to stop obstructing black students from attending Central.

SEPT. 23 Black students enter Central through a side door but then leave with police escort about noon as fighting escalates in a crowd outside.

SEPT. 24 The 101st Airborne Infantry Division from Fort Campbell, Ky., arrives at Central after Eisenhower authorized federal troops to enforce federal judge’s order for school integration.

SEPT. 25 The nine black students arrive at Central in an Army command car and are escorted into school by more than 20 soldiers, while still other soldiers disperse the mob outside.