Photo courtesy of US Army
We’re in the middle of a mystery here in 8th grade – the Little Rock 9 documentary film group has just uncovered a source that states there were initially ten students who were supposed to attend Central High School on September 4, 1957. The source (Stephanie Fitzgerald’s “The Little Rock Nine: Struggle for Integration,” Minneapolis: Compass Point Books, 2007) states: “A crowd of angry white people had already gathered in front of the school. They were determined not to let in the 10 black pupils.” (Fitzgerald, 9). She later writes “…one of the ten would not return to Central at all.” (Fitzgerlad, 15). Greer, the 8th grader who pointed it out, is now on a search to find out the story behind this 10th student. Initially, he thought it might be Elizabeth Eckford, who arrived separately from the group of students to attempted to enter the building on September 4, but as he read further, he realized this was not the case.
So now, Greer is off on a hunt to find out what the real story is. We’re all excited. He plans to look at some newspapers from September 4, 1957 to see if there’s another mention of this 10th person.
I’m going to let Greer work this one out, of course, but I couldn’t resist peeking myself, and I found this from the New York Times, September 3, 1957:
New York Times, September 3, 1957
And now there are 12! Who were the other students? How did there end up being only nine? So full of questions! Where will this mystery lead us? I’ll leave it to Greer to find out…
Excellent, these moments are what gives me some hope for the study of history.