Arkansas Democrat photo by staff photographer Mr. Bisgood.
On Monday, January 23, 1956, twenty-seven African American students attempted to integrate four Little Rock schools. By the end of the day, all four school principals had refused entry and some of the students had met with LRSD Superintendent Virgil Blossom.
Eight girls who were students at Horace Mann High School arrived at Central High at 9:30 am accompanied by Daisy Bates and Frank W. Smith both of the NAACP. One male student attempted to integrate Little Rock Technical High School. Four students arrived at Forest Heights Junior High (accompanied by three adults) and fourteen students attempted to integrate Forest Park Elementary (accompanied by four adults). Neither the Arkansas Gazette nor the Arkansas Democrat broke down the age or gender of the junior high and elementary students.
Though all were referred to meet with Mr. Blossom, only the young women from Horace Mann visited with him. After the conversation both he and Mrs. Bates declared the conversation had been friendly. Mr. Blossom, in denying the request, noted that the Little Rock School District had a plan for integration. To allow them to integrate immediately would have been going against the plan. The integration plan was connected to the completion of the new high school. If it were ready to open in the fall of 1957, then integration at the high schools would start then. The newspapers noted that there was no timeline for when it would extend down to the junior high and elementary levels.
That evening, Rev. J. C. Crenchaw, the president of the Little Rock NAACP, issued a statement. In it he expressed frustration that the LRSD was vague on its timeline for integration. He noted that the students lived near the schools which they tried to integrate and were therefore forced to travel several extra miles each day to attend school. He also commented that the young man who attempted to enroll at Tech was not afforded the training available there at his current school.
The Arkansas Democrat ran a photo of the meeting with Mr. Blossom. It identified the seven students who were pictured. No mention was made as to whether the eighth student was present but not photographed, or if she did not attend the meeting. As was the practice at the time, the addresses of the students were listed by their names. Based on those addresses, the students lived between 0.4 and 0.9 miles from Central High School and were between 2.1 and 3.2 miles away from Horace Mann High School. Of the seven students in the photo, two were seniors, three were juniors, and three were sophomores. None of the students named became part of the Little Rock Nine who did integrate Central High twenty-one months later.
There was no discussion in the media as to how long this plan had been in place or the genesis of it–had it been part of a national initiative or simply the local NAACP? There were also no details as to how the students had been selected.
On January 24, the Gazette editorial writer opined they were glad for the amicable nature of the conversations. They hoped it did not affect the good race relations in Little Rock. The writer concluded by saying they did not want it to incite extremists (but did not specify if they viewed the extremists as being for or against integration.
