Fighting Back (1957–1962)

States’ rights, loyalists, and federal authorities collide in the 1957 battle to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School, and again in James Meredith’s 1962 challenge to segregation at the University of Mississippi. Both times, a Southern governor squares off with a US president, violence erupts - and integration is carried out.

Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine students, arrives at Arkansas's Central High School for the first day the school is desegregated in its history but is met by an angry crowd to a bus stop. From Eyes on the Prize: Fighting Back (1957–1962).

Melba Pattillo Beals, one of the Little Rock Nine students, shares the police's plan to escort them to safety on the day they were to attend Arkansas's Central High School. It was the school's first day of desegregation but instead an angry crowd surrounded the student and school. From Eyes on the Prize: Fighting Back (1957–1962).

Melba Patillo Beals and Ernest Green recall when fellow Little Rock Nine student Minnijean Brown retaliated against the harassment by white students at Arkansas's Central High School. From Eyes on the Prize: Fighting Back (1957–1962).