April 21, 2011

Evan's Response to the Little Rock 9 Questions

Throughout history, choices made by people have usually had some degree of an effect on either common lifestyles or opinions of surrounding people. Group choices usually end up being more effective, due to violent, forceful strategies that are too frightful to others that they immediately switch opinions. During World War II, Hitler and the Nazi Party used the Jews as scapegoats to their inner-country struggles and problems. Did the Jews actually do anything? No. But the choice to blame the Jewish people ended up in millions of Jewish lives lost and the most brutal time in world history, which never needed to take place. This is just one perfect exemplar of a significant occurrence that took place due to a small (compared to rest of world) group choice.

In this case, the desegregation of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas definitely was another example of a group choice whose effect arose into surrounding racial conflict. In this case, the group was the formal State Court of Arkansas. In a source from Amistad Digital Resource, it states that, "Less than a week before the 1957 school year began, the Arkansas state court ordered Little Rock to reverse the city's desegregation plan." This then backfired on the black students who wished to attend "regular" school with whites. What was then done after this State Court decision was Governer Faubus instructed the National Guard of the state to guard the Central High School armed. These guards eventually had the job of stopping the Little Rock 9, nine black students who wished to go into the High School.

What rose out of this situation was pure violence towards black people, including the one black girl, who was surrounded by a mob of whites in the live footage video. Another example of this sort of horrific violence is the well-dressed black man being pushed around and then hit in the back side of the head with a brick. So, the main groups of whites shaped the integration of schools in Arkansas to turn into more unnecessary tensions between whites and blacks. These types of group hatreds against others have, unfortunately, been a common beat in the history of humans.

2 comments:

  1. It's interesting that you also choose the Nazi's as a group that affected history negatively. I liked how you embelished upon your thought on the Nazi's rather than just saying they affected history. I thought your response was well written and interesting. Great job!

    George

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  2. I like how you explained everything that happened and how you putit all together nicely. Great job!

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