WASHINGTON
President-elect Barack Obama has said the Little Rock Nine’s courage in desegregating an Arkansas public school helped make the opportunities in his life possible.
Now, most of those same trailblazing African-American civil rights pioneers will get a chance to watch in person on Tuesday as Obama breaks the ultimate color barrier and is sworn in as the nation’s first black president.
“This is going to change everything,” said Terrence Roberts, one of the nine black students who integrated Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957. “To look at a man of color and call him president, it’s something that I never thought I would see in my lifetime.”
Obama has repeatedly praised the efforts of the Little Rock Nine, who made civil rights history after the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregated schools unconstitutional.
An enraged white mob yelled, spit and threatened to lynch Roberts, Gloria Ray, Jefferson Thomas, Carlotta Walls, Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed and Melba Patillo if they tried to go to school. President Dwight Eisenhower sent U.S. troops to Little Rock to enforce the ruling and protect the students, who endured the taunts to desegregate the school.
