Throughout the past few weeks we have been diving into the topic of segregation in the Deep South. For me personally I didn’t know much about how black Americans earned the right to vote and equality in the south. After just getting through half of this unit I have already been enlightened about the many hardships and tragedies these people had to face. To hear stories about lynching, church burnings, and marches made my heart heavy. With the knowledge I have today I know none of these things should have even happened in the first place. But I do always wonder what started all of this evil and hatred towards black Americans?

The Little Rock Nine were a powerful and insanely driven group of students. These nine high school students were picked to attend a once all white school, since the new law of school of school segregation had been put in place. All nine students had mixed feelings about this. Sure they were excited and hopeful that maybe they were getting somewhere to end the segregation, but there was still that pit in their stomachs from the nerves for their first day of school. However the fellow white students were not as happy about them coming to their school as the nine were. So they made a plan that going alone in the morning just wasn’t a safe option. 

Elizabeth Eckford, who was one of the nine, did not own a phone so unfortunately for her she didn’t know that all the kids were supposed to meet somewhere so they could walk into school together. As she was walking alone other students stared to gather around her and heckle her. Slowly a whole mob had formed around poor Elizabeth who was just trying to go to school. 

How do you explain the mob’s reaction to Elizabeth’s arrival at school? What do you think white protestors were trying to accomplish?
Below are two poems I have written. The first explaining what I believe the mob’s reaction to Elizabeth’s arrival at school could have been from one person in the crowd’s perspective. The next how I perceive Elizabeth to be feeling in this moment with the mob surrounding and yelling at her.

Mob Mentality:

All my life it had only ever been whites
Until those blacks decided to come
I’ve grown up knowing to leave them in fright
Now they prance our halls making us look dumb

A girl walks alone in a sea of us
Anger runs through my veins seeing her here
The crowd starts screaming and making a fuss
All I want is for her to disappear

You could tell she was scared by the way she shook
This made me pleased as I heckled her more
In her hands she was gripping a book
Oh how I wanted to smash it to the floor

School was a place where whites could be free
Till those blacks had to fight for equality
All I Want is Education:

My first day at a new school was bad
I didn’t even make it in the door
The protesters around me seemed quite mad
Even the police helped with the uproar

My knees shook, but I kept my head held high
For I could not let their words get to me
They surrounded me wanting me to die
My only option left was to flee

Words of hate flew by me left and right
I thought the new law said I could go to school
Yet these people wanted to put up a fight
All of their yelling made me feel like a fool

A fair education was all I asked
But these people could not leave their past

I believe the white protesters were trying to show the government as well as the African Americans that they are not needed here in schools. They think that things were just fine the way they were before. With blacks in their designated schools and whites in theirs. Also I think the white protesters were trying to scare off the students in hopes that they wouldn’t come back to the school or the neighbourhood again. But luckily their protesting against African Americans attending so called white schools did nothing. The Little Rock nine kept persevering and coming to school to prove them wrong. In the end it payed off well and the white protests were pointless.