The Little Rock Nine

National Guard troops stand outside Central High School in 1957.

Within a year, some school districts desegregated. Here and there, African American and white students attended school together. But many school districts, especially in the South, found ways to resist and delay the Supreme Court ruling.

Little Rock, Arkansas, became a test case for the new ruling because public schools there were ordered to desegregate in September 1957. The local school board agreed, but the governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, refused. He was facing a tough re-election fight, and he hoped