404 ChaPter^8
Instead, the court told southern states to act “with all deliberate speed” in
desegregating their schools, which meant that the struggle for integration
would continue.And, in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957, local officials, sup-
ported by Governor Orval Faubus, tried to prevent 9 black students from
entering high school there. Ultimately, President Eisenhower, reluctantly, sent
the National Guard out to escort the “Little Rock Nine” into school. Again,
desegregation was accomplished, but against great resistance. At the same
time that the courts were beginning to address the legal system of segregation
in the south, the nation began to take notice of the cruel injustices of racism
and racial violence, and Blacks began to take direct action. In August 1955, a
14-year old African American boy from Chicago, Emmett Till, was visiting
relatives in Money, Mississippi when he allegedly said something to a white
woman, which was taboo in the South. A mob then kidnapped Till and bru-
tally beat and murdered him so badly that he was disfigured beyond recogni-
tion. His mother insisted on having an open casket because “I wanted the
world to see what they did to my baby.” Photos of the young boy, so grotesque
that he was not recognizable, were published in Jet Magazine and elsewhereFIGuRE 8-3 Rally at the Little Rock, Arkansas state capitol in protest of
the admission of the “Little Rock Nine” to Central High School, 1959