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LITTLE ROCK TWO
At the height of the white protests against the racial integration of Little Rock Central High School, the nine black students had to be escorted into the building by regular U.S. Army troops. This meant walking through a massive crowd of yelling white people, many of them screaming racial epithets. The walk began at the foot of the monumental exterior stairs that led up to the ornate front doors of the school building. |
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Picture the large front lawn and front porch of Central High School jammed with an angry mob of white persons. |
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The nine black students and their U.S. Army guard detail had to climb these stairs. |
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Once through these doors, the
Little Rock Nine were safe from the venomous white mob outside.
But the black students still had to deal with racist comments from white students inside the building. |
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In the summer of 2001, this monument commemorating the events that occurred in Little Rock in 1957 was under construction in a park adjacent to Central High School. |