Warren College Past Events

Reconsidering Little Rock: 50 Years After the Start of School Integration

In Fall 2007, Provost Steven Adler and Provost Allan Havis hosted an event designed to acknowledge the significant contributions that the two colleges’ namesakes, Earl Warren and Thurgood Marshall, lent to the movement of public school integration.  Both Warren and Marshall were key players in the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education. Although the Brown decision was the trigger for major social change, it was three years later in Little Rock that the nation experienced the first dramatic test case, in flesh and blood, of the principles that drove the Supreme Court decision. 

Reconsidering Little Rock: 50 Years After the Start of School Integration was a three-day symposium to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the attempt by nine African American students to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas and its impact on current events. The symposium featured keynote speeches by Civil Rights leaders Julian Bond and Terrence Roberts.

Bond, Chairman of the NAACP, spoke about the social ramifications of school desegregation in the last 50 years since nine African-American students made history by enrolling in the then all-white Little Rock Central High School in 1957. To view his entire presentation, click here. Roberts, one of the original nine African-American students who desegregated Little Rock Central High School, looked back on the lessons learned about race and education in the last 50 years. Follow this link to view his presentation in its entirety.