Newspaper Article

Obituary: Jefferson Thomas: One of the Little Rock Nine students of 1957

Carlson, Michael

2010

Overview

In 1954, the US supreme court ruled, in Brown v Board of Education (Topeka, Kansas), that segregated, \"separate but equal\" public education was not equal at all. Integration met with fierce resistance throughout the south. Three years later, [Thomas] and eight other children were picked from more than 100 who volunteered to break the colour barrier at Central high. Ironically, some Little Rock elementary schools had been integrated, but Central, the state's biggest high school, was a symbolic bastion for segregationists. Arkansas governor Orval Faubus had been elected in 1954 as a reformer, but had been accused of being a communist and faced a tougher fight in the 1958 primary elections from the more segregationist side of his own Democratic party. When Central opened on 7 September, Faubus ordered the state's National Guard to assist the local police in stopping the nine black students from entering. The sight of baying mobs throwing objects and abuse at these children, while armed soldiers stood in their way, shocked the world.

• Publisher: Guardian News & Media Limited
• Subject: Faubus, Orval