LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — It was 68 years ago today that Little Rock Central made national headlines when 10 Black students arrived to enter the school — that day would become a historic moment, signaling the group’s first attempt to integrate into the high school.
Daisy Bates, who served as President of the Arkansas NAACP, had planned for the students to meet at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, September 4 and be escorted into the school by both local Black and White ministers.
The plan was for the nine students (Melba Pattillo Beals, Thelma Mothershed, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Minnijean Brown, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas, Elizabeth Eckford, and Ernest Green) to begin attending at the start of the 1957 school year…