September 25, 1957 - 1000 Soldiers - a podcast by Stephen Hammond

One thousand soldiers escort nine black students into Little Rock Central High. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregating schools based on race was unconstitutional. Just days later the Little Rock, Arkansas school board agreed to abide by the decision and drew up plans a year later to begin gradually integrating schools staring in 1957. After some court challenges to speed up the process were denied, the process was to begin with black students attending classes at Little Rock Central High School on September 3, 1957. A defiant Governor Orval Faubus tried to block this by ordering his National Guard to prevent black students from entering white schools. After a court injunction and a first attempt that attracted thousands of protesters, President Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to intervene. He sent in 1,000 members of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army, and federalized the entire Arkansas National Guard, to ensure that the state’s first nine black students could enter Little Rock Central High to begin classes on September 25, 1957. Ernest Green, the first to graduate from Central High in 1980, became the assistant secretary of housing and urban affairs in the administration of President Jimmy Carter. He later went on to become a managing partner and vice president of the global finance company, Lehman Brothers in Washington, D.C. In the fall of 1999, 42 years after that historic day, President Bill Clinton awarded all nine students with the Congressional Gold Medal for their “selfless heroism” in standing up to discrimination.

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