As Ernest Green graduated from Central High, segregationists in Arkansas geared up to prevent the other seven students from doing the same. Once again, the Little Rock School Board asked for an injunction delaying integration until 1961. Although the injunction was initially granted, it was overturned by the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in August 1958. The reversal was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on September 12, 1958. The highest court in the land had told Little Rock that it must integrate.
But Governor Faubus had other plans. After he learned of the Supreme Court decision, he signed a package of segregation bills that had been passed by the Arkansas State Legislature in August, including a bill that granted him the power to shut down the public schools in any part of the state. He then proceeded to close down all four of Little Rock's public high schools, stating, "If Daisy Bates [an NAACP leader] would find an honest job and go to work, and if the U.S. Supreme Court would keep its cotton-picking hands off the Little Rock School Board's affairs, we could open the Little Rock [public] schools!" [13]
Meanwhile, the families of the Little Rock Nine came under tremendous pressure. Three of their parents were fired or forced to resign from their jobs. Some of the families moved away. The five students who remained in Little Rock took correspondence courses from the University of Arkansas while they waited for the public schools to reopen.
Finally, in the summer of 1959, the act which Governor Faubus had used to shut down the schools was declared unconstitutional. He immediately began work on a new law to take its place, but to avoid it, the school board opened the Little Rock high schools early, on August 12th. The only two black students assigned to Central High were both members of the original Little Rock Nine, Jefferson Thomas and Carlotta Walls; three other black students were assigned to the newer Hall High. Both Jefferson and Carlotta graduated that spring.
The crisis in Little Rock had a profound impact on America and the rest of
the world. It provided indelible proof of the lengths to which
some Southerners would go to prevent integration. It also showed African
Americans that they could attain the rights guaranteed to them by the
Constitution if they made themselves heard, on the street and in the
courtroom. "The lunch counter
sit-ins, the Freedom
Rides, and similar
struggles in which Negroes, led by Negroes, successfully engaged in after
Little Rock would possibly have taken place at some time in the future in
any case," noted Daisy Bates. "But that these events occurred when they did
is probably due more to the impact of Little Rock than to any other factor