Clinton Museum & Little Rock Central High School

 

The C.G we used to visit the city is located in North Little Rock meaning on the North shore of Arkansas River and it is considered a different city from Little Rock,it is an important detail when using a GPS.

We easily walked across the bridge to the William J. Clinton Presidential Center for a visit.

The visit can take from 1 hour till 2-3 days easily it all depends how “deep” you want to go to visit everything on the three floors,there is a lot of history in this unique place,video's,books, pictures and presents the Clinton’s received.

          

In a separate section of the American artist Dale Chihuly 1Born in Tacoma Washington in 1941, Chihuly is credited with revolutionizing the Studio Glass movement and elevating the perception of the glass medium from the realm of craft to fine art.

   

From there we made our way to visit the Little Rock Central High School to learn about the curtail battle ground in the struggle for civil rights that accrued in September 1957 .

  

In general we have been aware of the event but hearing it from the Ranger and standing where the Nine African-American teenagers stood,walked and suffered was a total different experience.

One of the "Little Rock Nine" braves a jeering crowd
Photograph by and courtesy of Will Counts

Little Rock High School, now Central High School National Historic Site, is a national emblem of the often violent struggle over school desegregation. Parting the Waters author Taylor Branch calls the Little Rock crisis "the most severe test of the Constitution since the Civil War."

Three years after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, which officially ended public-school segregation, a federal court ordered Little Rock to comply. On September 4, 1957, Governor Orval Faubus defied the court, calling in the Arkansas National Guard to prevent nine African American students--"The Little Rock Nine"--from entering the building. Ten days later in a meeting with President Eisenhower, Faubus agreed to use the National Guard to protect the African American teenagers, but on returning to Little Rock, he dismissed the troops, leaving the African American students exposed to an angry white mob. Within hours, the jeering, brick-throwing mob had beaten several reporters and smashed many of the school's windows and doors. By noon, local police were forced to evacuate the nine students.

When Faubus did not restore order, President Eisenhower dispatched 101st Airborne Division paratroopers to Little Rock and put the Arkansas National Guard under federal command. By 3 a.m., soldiers surrounded the school, bayonets fixed.

Under federal protection, the "Little Rock Nine" finished out the school year. The following year, Faubus closed all the high schools, forcing the African American students to take correspondence courses or go to out-of-state schools. The school board reopened the schools in the fall of 1959, and despite more violence--for example, the bombing of one student's house--four of the nine students returned, this time protected by local police.

Opposite the School is still standing this Gas Station that was a gathering place for the media those days only because there was a PAY PHONE there…imagine NO cell phones….

To be able to have a Future we must know the Past  and learn that in the free world  society changed for the better..