The Little Rock Nine: fifty-five years ago this month, President Eisenhower sent federal troops into Arkansas to enforce the desegregation of Little Rock's Central High School.

• Author: Roberts, Sam
• Position: TIMES PAST: 1957 - Dwight D. Eisenhower

The angry crowd screamed, "Go back where you came from," and shouted racial epithets. Some even threatened to lynch the small group of black teenagers as they headed toward all-white Central High School in Little Rock on the first day of school.

It was Sept. 4, 1957, and the nine black students were trying to desegregate Central High, a public school in the Arkansas state capital. Governor Orval Faubus accused Washington of "cramming integration down our throats," and had ordered the Arkansas National Guard to surround Central High and keep the students from entering. A mob of whites added to the chaos, as the black students walked stoically forward, fearing for their lives.

The "Little Rock Nine," as they became known, didn't make it inside that day. The drama played out for three weeks, ending only after President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops to ensure the black students made it safely through the school's front doors. The events, which were broadcast on national television, helped light a fire under the civil rights movement three years after the Supreme Court had declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

"Here are these brave, dignified, strong young men and women, just wanting to get an education and facing up to mobs," says Patricia Sullivan, a professor of history at the University of South Carolina. "The images of those nine young men and women on television inspired a generation of people who would be on the front lines of the student movement."

Segregation & the Supreme Court

Seeds of the showdown had been sown in 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The Justices unanimously ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, which guarantees Americans equal protection under the law (see timeline, p. 26). The Brown ruling overturned the "separate but equal" principle established by the Court in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson.

Most Southern states flouted the Brown ruling or took only token steps to comply. In Little Rock, the school board adopted a timetable for gradual desegregation, beginning in the fall of 1957 at Central High.

As the fall approached, segregationists in Little Rock were predicting that violence would erupt if integration took place. But a federal court ordered the school district to proceed. On September 4, nine black students--selected by the school board from a pool of more than 100 volunteers--tried to enter Central High for the first time. They were confronted by a mob of white hecklers.

"Are you scared?" a New York Times reporter asked one of the nine students, 15-year-old Terrence Roberts, that day.

"Yes, I am," he replied. "I think the students would like me OK once I got in and they got to know me."

That morning, they didn't get the chance. The nine were turned away by hundreds of Arkansas National Guard troops sent by Governor Faubus.

On September 20, a federal judge ordered Faubus to remove the troops. He complied, and three days later, Little Rock police escorted the nine students into the school through a side door. But rioting broke out among the more than 1,000 white protesters in front of the school, and police removed the black students after only a few hours, fearing for their safety.

In a dramatic climax to the...