July/August 2007 issue
Library Prepares "Little Rock 9" Display
by Joan Voelker, Archives Librarian
The U.S. Courts Library
8th Circuit is preparing a
display commemorating
the 50th anniversary of
Little Rock’s
desegregation case and
integration crisis.
When Arkansas’
legislature and Governor
Orval Faubus fought
integration following the
Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of
Education, it took orders from U.S. District
Court Judge Davies of the District of North
Dakota, sitting by designation in Arkansas, and
the force of Army troops sent by President
Eisenhower to allow nine African American
students to walk through the doors of Central
High School in September 1957. The following
year, integration of Little Rock schools was
again fought in the courts, with the 8th Circuit
Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court
(Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1) ruling in favor of
integration.
This landmark case sent the message to all states
that the federal courts would not tolerate state
refusal to comply with desegregation. Duplicate
copies of the display will be shown
simultaneously in the Little Rock and Fargo
federal courthouses in September 2007. In
October, the displays will be in the Fargo and St.
Louis federal courthouses.