Little Rock, Arkansas
The capital of Arkansas, Little Rock made national headlines in 1957, when Governor Orval Faubus used the state national guard to bar Black children from attending the city’s recently desegregated public schools, and President Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce the Brown vs. the Board of Education ruling. Three years later, local Black students at Philander Smith College, inspired by the sit-ins in Greensboro, initiated their own direct action protests against the city’s segregated public accommodations. In 1962, SNCC sent Bill Hansen to Little Rock to reinvigorate youth activism. Hansen and local activists helped launch an ongoing SNCC project in Arkansas.
