Though the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), state and local officials in a number of Southern states continued to block integration of their schools.
In 1957, the NAACP resolved to challenge these policies, enlisted nine Black students who agreed to register at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. When the students showed up for the first day of classes on September 4, they confronted a furious mob of white students and others, as well as 250 Arkansas National Guard officers sent by Governor Orval Faubus to prevent them from entering.
Meanwhile, television and newspaper coverage of the events in Little Rock drew international attention to the issue of school segregation, the battle over federal and state power and the growing civil rights movement.
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