Lauretta Underwood, 72, said she can clearly remember the day
her mother told her she was about to witness history as she was
dropped off at school. Following the landmark Supreme Court case
Brown V. Board of Education, which made school segregation
unconstitutional, Central High School and the state of Arkansas
became a national symbol of integration resistance, according to
the Arkansas Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. The
school board complied with the law and adopted a plan to
integrate, beginning at the high school level and working down
to the lower grades starting in 1957, according to the website.
On Sept. 2, 1957, nine African American students who volunteered
to attend Central High School were stopped by the Arkansas
National Guard under the direction of Gov. Orval Faubus, who
asserted the students’ entrance to the school would cause
violence, the website states. President Dwight Eisenhower
brought in the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division to ensure the
students were allowed to attend