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‘Little Rock’, a play by the writer and director Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj, playing from Aug. 31 till Sept. 8 at The Sheen Center, New York, showcases the Little Rock Crisis.
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On Sept. 3, 1957, nine Black students arrived for their academic year in the formerly whites-only Central High School, Arkansas. The decision to enroll Black students in white-only schools came after the 1954 U.S Supreme Court ruling. The top court of the country declared public school segregation unconstitutional in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education.
The integration was not easy by any means. After rigorous interviews, only nine out of eighty Black students were admitted into the school: Melba Patillo Beals, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Carlotta Walls Lanier, Terrance Roberts, Jefferson Thomas, Minnijean Brown Trickey, and Thelma Mothershed Wair.
When these nine students, later renowned as the ‘Little Rock Nine’, arrived at the white-only school during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, they were faced with violent protests from white students, their parents and citizens who opposed integration.
The National Guard, at the insistence of Arkansas Governor Orval M. Faubus, was present at the school gates to stop the nine students from entering the school premises where all 1,900 attendees were white. This turned into a long-lasting standoff between integrationists and segregationists, the state of Arkansas and the Federal government.
President Dwight Eisenhower dispatched the 101st Airborne and federalized the 10,000 Arkansas National Guard troops who were present to ensure that the school would be open to the nine students. On Sept. 23, 1957, the group were ushered into the building under protection but there was an angry mob of people gathered in front of the school.
“I really think that we were afraid to look at the mob; at least, I was,” says Trickey. “So we just heard it and it was like a sports event -- that sound the roar -- but it was a roar of hatred, and just thinking about it makes me shake.”
The troops stayed throughout the academic year to ensure the safety of the Little Rock Nine. This event served as a catalyst of the U.S Civil Rights Movement and became the center of a debate on civil rights, racial discrimination and segregation.
The play ‘Little Rock’ unfolds the events of the crisis. “I never realized when I started this journey that it would be a 13-year journey that would change every aspect of my life as an artist and an activist,” says Maharaj, the writer and director of the play. The play is a two-act blend of documentary theater and African-American musical tradition.
The website of the play describes it as: “HISTORY CALLED IT HEROISM. THEY CALLED IT HIGH SCHOOL. LITTLE ROCK tells the riveting true story of the Little Rock Nine, the first black students to attend their city’s formerly segregated Central High School. What began as their quest for a better education soon became a national crisis, igniting the passions of a divided country and sparking a historic fight for justice in the Jim Crow South.
On the cusp of the Civil Rights Movement, a changing world watched as these nine children from Arkansas battled for their rights with only a book and pencil. At once harrowing and hopeful, LITTLE ROCK brings urgently to life the Nine’s untold personal stories of challenge and resilience, conjuring memories of America not so long ago.”
The play comes at a time when the United States is going through another round of heated debate and tensions over racial relations in the country following several high-profile killings of Black unarmed men that sent people into the streets demanding reforms within law enforcement agencies and the justice system.
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