Friday, January 14, 2011

Day Six--- Little Rock

We hit the rode pretty early---5:15, before the sunrise. I had a long sleep on the bus, about 4 to 5 hours; and this is my longest bus sleeping actually.

After lunch we reach the termini Little Rock, Arkansas. We headed over to our real tour today at Little Rock Central High School. This is a historic, meaningful and bueautiful school. I have heard about this school and its event before I came here. We got some information in the Central High visitor center. Little Rock Central High School was the focal point of the Little Rock Integration Crisis in the summer of 1957. Nine African American students, known as Little Rock Nine, were denied entrance to the school in defiance of the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling integration of public school. This procoked a shwdown between Governor of Arkansas Orval Faubus and the President Eisenhower that gained international attention. Later soon, President Eisenhower ordered 1,200 soldier 101st Airborne Battle Group of the U.S. Army's 101 Airborne Division; to protect those nine African American students entered the LRCHS. Little Rock Nine event was seen as a milestone in the civil rights movement.

I revere the Little Rock Nine's courage. I can understand the hard condition the have faced, 9 black students, 15 hundreds white students around them. Each of them has different schedule, that's means each of them is the only black student in the class, in the cafeteria and the playground. Some of their classmates support them; however, most of the students and teachers hostile to them. Personally, I think in that case, they might know they are not only the students there, but the models and pioneers of civil rights movement. They know the nation and the world was watching them. Even though they are allowed to study in LRCHS, they can't join any club and students' organizations. The only thing they can do is study. It was hard, apparent. But somehow, they made it. Ernest Green, the one of Little Rock Nine, was the first African American to graduate from LRCHS. The other eight graduate in the following years after Green gratuated.

What I learned from Little Rock Central High is I see the power from the federal to push the civil rights movement forward. Before this, all we saw and learned is the events of African Amerian civil rights warriors struggle for equal. This time, the biggest difference is, government is the protagonist of an event. Even though after Little Rock Central High the American Civil Rights Movement still went through a long term, we could have the confidence of civil rights movement will be succeed in the very beginning; just because we all know justice is still the soul of this nation.

No comments:

Post a Comment