The battle of Little Rock: civil rights struggle remembered (The Independent, London, England)

[Apollo11]

THE INDEPENDENT (London, England) - September 25, 2007

The battle of Little Rock: civil rights struggle remembered

As America recalls the day when troops were sent to escort nine Arkansas teenagers to school, Leonard Doyle talks to the cub reporter who forced a president to confront segregation

Exactly fifty years ago today in the midst of toxic racial ferment, nine black teenagers were escorted to their school in Little Rock, Arkansas, by armed paratroopers as an angry white mob hurled abuse at them.

For three weeks in September 1957, Little Rock was the focus of a showdown over segregation as the state governor, Orval Faubus, defied a Supreme Court ruling from 2004 which declared segregated classrooms unconstitutional.

He ordered the Arkansas National Guard to stop the nine black students from enrolling at The Central High School with about 2,000 white students.

The showdown became a test for then President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who sent members of the Army's 101st Airborne Division in to escort the nine students to the school.

The Nine, whose transfer to Central High School from the badly equipped local Negro school was so bitterly opposed, arrived in an army Jeep, with armed troops from the 101st Airborne division, the "Screaming Eagles" in front and behind.

Amid astonishing scenes there were snipers on the school roof and helicopters circled overhead while 20 soldiers in combat gear shielded the nine black students as they crossed the lawn and climbed the stairs of the school.

It was the first time in 80 years that federal troops had been sent to a former state of the Confederacy.

The episode became a landmark in the American civil rights struggle alongside the stand taken by black civil rights activist Rosa Parks, who in 1955 refused to sit at the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. That moment will be remembered in a ceremony today featuring, among others, Arkansas's most famous son, former President Bill Clinton.

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Read the full article here:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2996117.ece