In South Florida, one of the 'Little Rock Nine,' Civil Rights icon Elizabeth Eckford
MIAMI - Civil rights icon and member of the "Little Rock Nine," Elizabeth Eckford, made the Coral Springs Center for the Arts the final stop of her tour on Tuesday evening.
Back in September of 1957, then Governor Orval Faubus used the Arkansas National Guard to keep nine black children out of Central High, telling a statewide TV audience that court-ordered integration would spark mob violence. He didn't acknowledge that he helped manufacture the crisis to boost his segregationist credentials.
Eckford, who was 15, at the time addressed the South Florida audience about what she went through, recalling the milestone in Civil Rights history.
In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregated classrooms unconstitutional, ruling that many districts were operating education systems that were separate but not equal. By the fall of 1957, the Charleston, Fayetteville and Hoxie school districts had integrated peacefully but agitators targeted Little Rock for trouble.
For three weeks, Little Rock became the focus of a showdown between Faubus and Eisenhower. Faubus pulled the Guard away but a crowd gathered outside the school Sept. 23 to prevent it from complying with U.S. District Judge Ronald Davies' desegregation order. An Associated Press account called the chaos a "human explosion."
Eisenhower that night authorized the use of federal troops to enforce Davies' order and - for the first time since Reconstruction - federal troops were deployed to a former Confederate state. Members of the 101st Airborne Division escorted the Little Rock Nine to classes on Sept. 25, 1957.
