Segregation vs. Integration in Little Rock: 1957 – 2007

On September 23rd 1957 nine black children stood before centuries of ignorance and challenged it by integrating the all-white Central High School. Now, 50 years later, we venture back into their world and observe just how far their sacrifice has taken us. By comparing the detailed first hand accounts of the 1957 integration of Central High Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Beals and the HBO documentary Little Rock Central High School: 50 Years Later one can see just how far we’ve come, or how far we’ve fallen short. Students at Central High remain segregated to this day; no longer are the governments at fault but rather the students themselves and the deeply rooted racism and classism bound within all them.

In 1957 the halls were commonly clad with local National Guardsmen or soldiers of the 101st Airborne division. One would imagine the school felt as much a prison as it did a school. In 2007 the school is under the protection of a few unarmed privately hired guards. The need for heavy security has vanished from Central High since integration began.

Central High School is located on the border between the black and white communities, both communities go to Central. In 1957 the schools population was made up entirely of wealthy white kids and faculty. The schools academic integrity was surpassed only by its prestige. The introduction of black students outraged the population fifty years ago. Now the population is evenly divided, black and white, both populations garnering equal treatment by the school and local government. Indeed at first glance one may assume that segregation is indeed a figment of Little Rocks history.

So it could be proposed that the riddle of integration has been solved, but this is false. Go into any classroom and you’ll see a class divided, black and white. The invisible border that is Advanced Placement separates the rich from the poor, the white from the black. While each respective race tolerates the other the thought of actual social integration is alien to them. The faculty teaching the lower class levels see this divide vividly. As far as most white AP students are concerned the black population simply lacks motivation; just as the black population assumes the White population has been given every opportunity they have been denied. During recreational periods the divides are clear, each group defined by their skin.

Racism at Central High is an everlasting blockade barring true integration from invading the minds and classrooms of the students within. In contrast the HBO Documentary from 2007 reveals an illusion of progress, but the opposite is true. All the progress was made decades ago; now students are caught in their ways just as they were in Warriors Don’t Cry. Any realistic person would realize that we have massive walls to climb before true integration can be achieved.