Nine Black students attending Central High School are shown leaving the school under protection of Federalized Arkansas National Guardsmen, Oct. 9, 1957, in Little Rock, Ark.Supreme Court decision ended racial segregation in public schools, members of the "Little Rock Nine" -- the first group of African American students to attend Little Rock Central High School -- sat down with ABC News to discuss the challenges they faced in education then and the challenges that remain today.
"First day, it did not bother me. I saw the crowd. I heard the name-calling. I recognized that there would be people out there that did not want me there. That, I expected, okay ... not for it to last as long as it did," LaNier, who is the youngest of the Nine, recalled. "But we didn't have time to think about those things because our focus was on staying alive," Roberts said. "Believe it or not, this was a life-threatening situation. People threatened to kill us every hour, every day. But in spite of that, we were willing to stay there because it was important to be there.""What we need to do is celebrate those individuals, think about the Little Rock Nine, here are young people who was put in harm's way with trauma.
Cheryl Brown Henderson is the daughter of Oliver Brown, a main plaintiff in the case whom Brown vs. Board of Education was named after. Born, raised and buried in Topeka, Kansas, Brown partook in the lawsuit because his oldest daughter, Linda - Cheryl's sister - had to travel 24 blocks to attend the nearest African American school.