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Three years earlier, on May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its historic Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which declared all laws establishing segregated schools to be unconstitutional. It called for the desegregation of all schools. After the decision the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attempted to register black students in previously all-white schools in cities throughout the South.
In Little Rock, the capital city of Arkansas, the Little Rock School Board agreed to comply with the high court's ruling. Virgil Blossom, the Superintendent of Schools, submitted a plan of gradual integration to the school board on May 24, 1955, which the board unanimously approved. The plan would be implemented during the fall of the 1957 school year, which would begin in September 1957. By 1957, the NAACP had registered nine African-American students to attend the previously all-white Little Rock Central High, selected on the criteria of excellent grades and attendance. The "Little Rock Nine" were Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Minnijean Brown, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed, and Melba Pattillo Beals. Ernest Green was the first African American to graduate from Central High School.
Several segregationist councils threatened to hold protests at Central High and physically block the black students from entering the school. Governor Orval Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard on September 4, 1957, not to protect the students, but to prevent them from entering the school. The sight of a line of soldiers blocking nine black students from attending high school made national headlines and polarized the nation. One of the nine black students, Elizabeth Eckford, later recalled: "They moved closer and closer... Somebody started yelling... I tried to see a friendly face somewhere in the crowd—someone who maybe could help. I looked into the face of an old woman and it seemed a kind face, but when I looked at her again, she spat on me."
On September 9, Little Rock School District issued a statement condemning the governor's deployment of soldiers to the high school and called for a citywide prayer service on September 12. President Dwight Eisenhower attempted to de-escalate the situation and summoned Faubus to meet him. The President warned the governor not to defy the Supreme Court's ruling.
Woodrow Nilson Mann, the Mayor of Little Rock, asked Eisenhower to send federal troops to enforce integration and protect the nine students. On September 24, the President ordered the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to Little Rock and federalized the entire 10,000 member Arkansas National Guard, taking it out of the hands of the governor.
By the end of September 1957, the nine were admitted to Little Rock Central High under the protection of the U.S. Army (and later the Arkansas National Guard), but they were still subjected to a year of physical and verbal abuse by many of the white students. Melba Pattillo had acid thrown into her eyes and also recalled in her book, Warriors Don't Cry, an incident in which a group of white girls trapped her in a stall in the girls' washroom and attempted to burn her by dropping pieces of flaming paper on her from above. Another one of the students, Minnijean Brown, was verbally confronted and abused. She said "I was one of the kids 'approved' by the school officials. We were told we would have to take a lot and were warned not to fight back if anything happened. One girl ran up to me and said, 'I'm so glad you’re here. Won’t you go to lunch with me today?' I never saw her again."
Minnijean Brown was also taunted by members of a group of white male students in December 1957 in the school cafeteria during lunch. She dropped her lunch—a bowl of chili—onto the boys and was suspended for six days. Two months later, after more confrontation, Brown was suspended for the rest of the school year. She transferred to New Lincoln High School in New York City. According to Melba Pattillo Beals' book, white students were punished only when their offense was "both egregious and witnessed by an adult".