TIME SET: 1957
In 1957, nine African American students, Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Pattillo, Gloria Ray, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas, and Carlotta Walls, were selected to desegregate Little Rock Central High School. Briggs v. Elliott case of 1952, evidence showed that Black students in Clarendon County, South Carolina, attended schools in dilapidated buildings, lacked basic amenities like heating, and used hand-me-down textbooks from White schools. In the crumbling, overcrowded Black schools, students face not just broken desks and outdated books but also the grim reality of rising crime, drug use, and staggering dropout rates. Little Rock Central High School was previously all-white, and faced immense opposition to the desegregation. It has witnessed violence, and now, Federal troops have been deployed to protect the school from riots and vandalism.