Little Rock Nine's 60th Anniversary Weekend Celebrations

It was late September 1957, and students at Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas had been in class for three weeks. Everyone, that is, but 14-year-old Carlotta Walls and eight other teenagers who were to be Central High’s first black students. They had been prevented from entering the school by an angry mob of citizens, backed up by a group of Arkansas National Guardsmen.

But on Sept. 25, under escort by federal troops, Carlotta and her classmates walked up the front steps of Central High and into history.

They became the highest-profile black students in the United States to integrate a formerly all-white school. This month, Little Rock will celebrate the 60th anniversary of that pivotal moment in the civil rights movement by honoring the students who became known as the Little Rock Nine, with events including speeches by eight of the students as well as former president and Arkansas governor Bill Clinton.