Crisis in the Classroom: Little Rock & Boston

Noted Black activist and scholar, W.E.B. DuBois, once said that the problem of the twentieth century would be the color line, and he has been proven right. The twentieth century has been riddled with race riots and racial strife as African Americans and white Americans have tried to learn to live with one another, and with the legacy of slavery. One of the most contested areas of racial antagonism has been education. In the aftermath of the Brown v. Board of Education, 1954 decision, nine black students faced angry white mobs when they tried to attend school at Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. Twenty years later, racial tempers flared again over busing in Boston. Crisis in the Classroom: Little Rock and Boston would be useful for classes on American History, African-American History, American Culture, Political Science and Ethics. It is appropriate for middle school and high school.

OBJECTIVES

Students will examine periods and instances of racial disharmony in the aftermath of segregation in the South, and de facto segregation in the North. They will analyze causes of antagonism between racial groups and explore possible solutions.

NATIONAL HISTORY STANDARDS

Crisis in the Classroom: Little Rock and Boston fulfills the following National Standards for History for grades 5-12: Chronological thinking, historical comprehension, historical analysis and interpretation for eras 9 and 10.

• Analogy
• Coincidence
• Deplore
• Diversionary
• Hoax
• Incongruous
• Injunction
• Integrate
• Nullify
• Progressive
• Respite
• Sabotage
• Shrewd
• Sinister
• Tacit

1. Racial discord became threatened to become racial warfare during the 1957 integration of Central High School in Arkansas. Why did integration of the school inflame such passions?

2. How was segregation in the South, also known as Jim Crow laws, a legacy of slavery in the United States?

3. The 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. the Board of Education made segregation unconstitutional. What does unconstitutional mean? What are some examples?

4. Why were Little Rock in 1957, and Boston in 1974, so resistant to integration?

5. Why did Orval Faubus, governor of Arkansas, refuse to cooperate with the Supreme Court's decision?

6. Discuss the broader implications of State rights and Federal powers in the Little Rock crisis.

7. Why were the incidents at Little Rock so historic?

8. Unlike the South, the North did not have legal segregation, but practiced de facto segregation. What does de facto mean? Can you give some examples?

9. How and why was Boston a "city on trial" during the 1975-1976 school year?

10. Some suggest that Boston displayed a "frontier mentality" during the busing crisis. What is a frontier mentality?

11. Was busing a success or failure?

1. Research accounts of the 1957 Central High School integration crisis in local and national newspapers. How is race discussed differently today than it was forty years ago?

2. Create a timeline that illustrates the major events of the 1957 Little Rock crisis or the 1974-76 Boston crisis.

Related Videos

Primary Sources

• BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION, 344 U.S. 141 (1952): "We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does...We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.