The Little Rock Nine

1
The Little Rock Nine

• Erika

2
Who Were the Little Rock 9?

• Nine African American high school students whose
  courage lead to the integration of Central High
  in Little Rock, Arkansas

3
What is Desegregation?

• Bringing different races together

4
Why Was Desegregation Necessary?

• Separate but equal was not working

5
Why Did Desegregation Meet With Such Protest?

• Fear of interracial marriage
• They felt that blacks were worthless
• Legacy of slavery
• Not wanting to accept the blacks
• ignorance

6
The Threats to the Little Rock Nine

• Paper lit of fire being thrown
• Death threats
• Attacks from mobs
• Threats to burn down their houses
• Threats about killing their families

7
Did All Finish the Year at Central High?

• Minnijean Brown was expelled for calling a
  Caucasian girl white trash
• Minnijean also got expelled for dumping chili on
  a boy who was harassing her
• 8/9 finished
• Ernest Green was the first African American to
  graduate from Central High

8
Who are they now?

9
Ernest Green

• He currently is a managing partner and vice
  president of Lehman Brothers in Washington, D.C.

10
Jefferson Thomas

• He graduated from Central in 1960, following a
  year in which Little Rock's public high schools
  were ordered closed by the legislature to prevent
  desegregation. Today, he
• is an accountant with the U.S.
• Department of Defense and lives in Anaheim,
  Calif.

11
Dr.Terrance Roberts

• Following the historic year at Central, his
  family moved to Los Angeles where he completed
  high school. He earned a doctor degree and
  teaches at the University of California at Los
  Angeles and Antioch College.

12
Carlotta Walls Lanier

• One of only three of the nine who eventually
  graduated from Central, she and Jefferson Thomas
  returned for their senior year in 1959. She
  graduated from Michigan State University and
  presently lives in Englewood, Colorado, where she
  is in real estate.

13
Minnijean Brown Trickey

• She was expelled from Central High in February,
  1958, after several incidents, including her
  dumping a bowl of chili on one of her antagonists
  in the school cafeteria. She moved with her
  husband to Canada during the Vietnam War protests
  of the 1960s and today is a writer and social
  worker in Ontario. Winterstar Productions is
  presently filming a documentary on her life.

14
Gloria Ray Kalmark

• She graduated from Illinois Technical College and
  received a post-graduate degree in Stockholm,
  Sweden. She was a prolific computer science
  writer and at one time successfully published
  magazines in 39 countries. Now retired, she
  divides her time between homes in Amsterdam, The
  Netherlands, and Stockholm, where her husband's
  family lives.

15
Thelma Mothershed-Wair

• She graduated from college, then made a career of
  teaching. She lives in Belleville, Illinois,
  where she is a volunteer in a program for abused
  women.

16
Elizabeth Eckford

• The only one of the nine still living in Little
  Rock, Elizabeth made a career of the U.S. Army
  that included work as a journalist. In 1974, she
  returned to the home in which she grew up and is
  now a part-time social worker and mother of two
  sons.

17
Melba Pattillo Beals

• She is an author and former journalist for People
  magazine and NBC and lives in San Francisco

18
Results of desegregating

• Other schools have been desegregated.
• Schools are letting other races go into their
  schools.