ldren in their schools. Reluctantly, the Little Rock school board developed an integration plan, although it took more than three years to create. Nonetheless, by 1957 the integration plan was finished. The plan called for three phases. The primary phase would take place in the 1957-1958 school year. During this school year, the senior high schools, grades 10-12, would be integrated. The following school year the junior high schools would be integrated. After the two previous schools were successfully integrated, the elementary schools would be integrated.As the 1957-1958 school year grew near, the board began to plan for the senior high school integration. It was decided that the Horace Mann school, better known as the all black school, would be kept intact. Some students from the Horace Mann school would be selected to attend the local white high school, called Central High. Of the several black students that volunteered to attend Central High, a selection process selected the seventeen students they felt would fit the best. These students were selected mostly on their exceptional grades; however, the students were also engaged in many extracurricular activities. As the new school year approached, the seventeen students dwindled down to nine, as many feared they would not be able to handle the intense pressures of the all white school.The tension grew in Little Rock and the students were forced to face much adversity before the school year even began. A number of whites went to court to try to put a court ordered injunction on the integration, but they were all denied. Many members of the black community disapproved of the integration as well, claiming that the students did not deserve to be among the higher class white students and that they would be out of place. The Little Rock school board did as much as they could to limit the blacks as well. Knowing they could not prevent integration, the school board simply laid...
