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Little Rock Nine 1:19
The Little Rock Nine were the first blacks to attend all-white Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment sparked resistance and a constitutional crisis that would advance civil rights in America. After the Little Rock Nine took their stand, school integration advanced in the South, slowly at first, but faster after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. High school graduation rates among blacks went from 18 percent in 1957 to 81 percent in 2006, according to the Census Bureau. (The graduation rate for whites in 1957 was 43 percent; in 2006 it stands at 86 percent.)
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