USA HISTORY

PROTESTS ACTIVISM AND CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 1954 1973

THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT DURING THE 1950S

Question [CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
What happened at the first attempt to integrate public schools in Little Rock?
A
The students entered the school, but people were angry.
B
The students fled when threatened by a violent mob.
C
Several of the students were killed.
D
About two dozen protesters were beaten and hospitalized.
Explanation: 

Detailed explanation-1: -The armed Arkansas militia troops surrounded the school while an angry crowd of some 400 whites jeered, booed, and threatened to lynch the frightened African American teenagers, who fled shortly after arriving. Faubus took the action in violation of a federal order to integrate the school.

Detailed explanation-2: -On September 2, 1957 the night prior to what was to be the teens’ first day in Central High classrooms, Arkansas governor Orval Faubus ordered the state’s National Guard to block their entrance. Faubus said it was for the safety of the nine students.

Detailed explanation-3: -The desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, gained national attention on September 3, 1957, when Governor Orval Faubus mobilized the Arkansas National Guard in an effort to prevent nine African American students from integrating the high school.

Detailed explanation-4: -One of the students, Minnijean Brown, fought back and was expelled. The remaining eight students, however, attended the school for the rest of the academic year. At the end of the year, in 1958, senior Ernest Green became the first African American to graduate from Little Rock Central High School.

Detailed explanation-5: -In 1959, a federal court struck down Faubus’ school-closing law, and in August 1959 Little Rock’s white high schools opened a month early with Black students in attendance. All grades in Little Rock public schools were finally integrated in 1972.

There is 1 question to complete.