What happened in 1957 when 9 black students went to school at Central High School Little Rock Ark.?

Answer 1

On the first day of the school year, the nine students did not show up - on the advice of the school board. On the second day, they arrived escorted by two white ministers and two African American ministers. They were stopped from entering by the National Guard. As the students left, they were verbally abused by white students and adults from Little Rock. These scenes were captured on television and shown throughout the world. America was shocked at what it saw. In this case, the camera could not lie.

Here was a federal law being challenged by a state governor. If Eisenhower failed here, where would it end? Ironically, only two months earlier Eisenhower had publicly stated that he would not use Federal troops to enforce desegregation. Eisenhower spent 18 days conferring with Faubus and the mayor. During this time, the African American students stayed at home and the school remained guarded by the National Guard. They only left the school when a federal court ordered them to leave.
By this time, Little Rock was in a state whereby the people could have become very violent and Law and Order could have disintegrated.

On Monday 23rd September, the nine African American students arrived at the school again. They got in to the school by a delivery entrance. When a large white mob heard that they were in the school building, their anger spilled over and African Americans in the street were attacked as were reporters known to be writing for northern newspapers - only 150 local police were on standby to protect everybody from a much larger body of thugs. The mayor of the city phoned the White House to ask for Federal help fearing a total breakdown of law and order. The nine students were smuggled out of the school for their own safety and sent home. The 150 police clearly showed that they were in sympathy with the mob - one took off his badge and simply walked away.
On that day Eisenhower did nothing and simply asked for the mob to go home. The next day - the 24th September - another white hate mob turned up at the school and Eisenhower was forced to send in 1,100 paratroopers to establish law and order and he federalised the Arkansas National Guard and put it under Washington's command. He found such actions "repugnant" and he did them not to support desegregation but to establish law and order and he did so not as president but as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. It was the first time since the end of the Civil War and Reconstruction that federal troops had been sent to the South to assist the African American community there.




Source: http:/www.historylearningsite.co.uk/little_rock.htm
Federal troops were sent to protect nine African-American students from threats of violence during the desegregation of Central High School.