White Southerners Respond to Brown v. Board of Education: Why Crisis Erupted When Little Rock, Arkansas, Desegregated Central High School

What was the impact of Brown v. Board of Education on the United States and how did pro-segregationists in the South respond? In order to answer this question, I argue three key arguments over the course of three chronological chapters. In chapter one, I argue that segregationists from southern states responded to Brown by fighting to preserve segregation in order to protect a racial hierarchy they believed was essential. This racial hierarchy is magnified in the southern capital of Little Rock, Arkansas, which I argue in chapter two exposed segregationists’ political defiance and poor organization around racial integration of public schools. After a year of integration, analyzed in chapter three, I conclude my chapters by arguing the first year slowed down the segregationist organizations, but did not persuade them that racial integration would improve the “southern way of life.”