Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas.

[1] 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.

Originally at orders of the governor, they were meant to prevent the black students from entering due to claims that there was "imminent danger of tumult, riot and breach of peace" at the integration.

[4] This original proposal was scrapped and replaced with one that more closely met a set of minimum standards worked out in attorney Richard B. McCulloch's brief.

The final stage would involve limited desegregation of the city's grade schools at an unspecified time, possibly as late as 1963.

Militant members like the Bateses opposed the plan on the grounds that it was "vague, indefinite, slow-moving and indicative of an intent to stall further on public integration.

[6] This meant that, even though black students lived closer to Central, they would be placed in Horace Mann, thus confirming the intention of the school board to limit the impact of desegregation.

[7] Most histories of the crisis conclude that Faubus, facing pressure as he campaigned for a third term, decided to appease racist elements in the state by calling out the National Guard to prevent the black students from entering Central High.

Former associate justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court James D. Johnson claimed to have hoaxed Governor Faubus into calling out the National Guard, supposedly to prevent a white mob from stopping the integration of Little Rock Central High School: "There wasn't any caravan.

Several segregationist councils threatened to hold protests at Central High and physically block the black students from entering the school.

Even President Dwight Eisenhower attempted to de-escalate the situation by summoning Faubus for a meeting, warning him not to defy the Supreme Court's ruling.

[12] Woodrow Wilson Mann, the mayor of Little Rock, asked President Eisenhower to send federal troops to enforce integration and protect the nine students.

The president ordered the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to Little Rock—initially without its black soldiers at the request of the Department of Justice—and federalized the entire 10,000-member Arkansas National Guard, taking it out of Faubus's control.

[13] Two segregationists were injured in clashes with federal troops on September 25; one who was struck in the face with a buttstock after trying to grab a soldier's rifle, and a second who received a minor bayonet wound to the arm.

[14] By the end of September 1957, the nine were admitted to Little Rock Central High under the protection of the 101st Airborne Division (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.

[16]Minnijean Brown was also taunted by members of a group of white male students in December 1957 in the school cafeteria during lunch.

[2] As depicted in the 1981 made-for-TV docudrama Crisis at Central High, and as mentioned by Melba Pattillo Beals in Warriors Don't Cry, white students were punished only when their offense was "both egregious and witnessed by an adult".

[22] A week before the referendum, which was scheduled to take place on September 27, Faubus addressed the citizens of Little Rock in an attempt to secure their votes.

[24][27] In May 1959, after the firing of forty-four teachers and administrative staff from the four high schools, three segregationist board members were replaced with three moderate ones.

Rather, the black students had a difficult time getting past mobs to enter the school, and, once inside, they were often subject to physical and emotional abuse.

[31] In 1958, Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén published "Little Rock", a bilingual composition in English and Spanish denouncing the racial segregation in the United States.

While the NPS visitor center was under construction, Hunt's painting, titled "America Cares", hung in the White House.

[36] In 2013, the foundation decided to exclusively fund students attending the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas.

In 2004, art director Ethel Kessler selected George Hunt's Little Rock Nine/America Cares painting for a 37-cent U.S. Postage Stamp.

On December 9, 2008, the Little Rock Nine were invited to attend the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, the first African-American to be elected President of the United States.

On November 19, 2022, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Carlotta Walls LaNier and Thelma Mothershed-Wair etched their initials onto metal plates that were then welded onto the keel of the attack submarine USS Arkansas (SSN-800) in a ceremony at Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Virginia.

I signed on to be a foster grandmother...President Eisenhower sent 1,000 paratroopers to Little Rock to disperse a mob, bring order, and they made it possible for us to enter Central High School.

Civil rights historian Mary L. Dudziak argues that President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the U.S. federal government's primary concern in their response was the world's perception of the U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was particularly aware of the global impact, telling Attorney General Herbert Brownell over a phone call that "this situation was ruining our foreign policy".

Brownell asked Dulles to look over a draft of the President's speech in Arkansas following the crisis, where he suggested that Eisenhower "put in a few more sentences...emphasizing the harm done abroad".

It aimed to reverse the global shame surrounding discrimination in America, accentuated by Soviet propaganda, and instead boasted of the progress that they believed could be achieved in an American democracy.