The Lost Year-Books

THE LOST YEAR-STORY PLOT

 The lost year-story during 1958-59 year,when Governor Orval Faubus closed all high schools in Little Rock, locking out 3,665 black and white students from a public education, and locking in almost 200 teachers and administrators to contracts to serve empty classrooms.

Students and citizens were held in limbo. The 10th, 11th and 12th grades were closed. Faubus' school closing occurred at the beginning of the 1958-59 school year. Several weeks later a referendum was held and Little Rock voters, by a three-to-one margin, supported segregation over complete integration of all schools—the only two options on the ballot.
Faubus and segregationist state legislators created new state laws to further forestall court ordered racial integration of schools decreed in the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka
Predictably, class and race were factors in who found schooling and who did not. Ninety three per cent of white students found some form of education that year. White families were better able to find transportation, pay tuition, or make more elaborate arrangements for alternative schooling.
No private education emerged for blacks and fifty percent did no academic work that year. Many found jobs and hoped that schools would open, or joined the military to finish their education. Many of these students never returned to school.
Ironically, the remaining members of the Little Rock Nine, having suffered through the previous year at Central, were also affected. Some left the state for alternative schooling or enrolled in correspondence courses from universities.

Opposing sides worked publicly and behind the scenes to jockey for control of their community. The Capital Citizens Council and the Mothers' League of Central High represented the segregationist groups.
Few public voices stood for the moderates, but Harry Ashmore, Editor of the Arkansas Gazette, and The Women's Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools were among the first to have the courage to speak out.
Finally in late spring a turning point came in the Lost Year crisis. At a session of the Little Rock School Board, which had gathered to consider renewing the teachers' contracts, three of the six member board walked out. These moderates considered this an end to the official business of the meeting, believing that no further action could be taken by the remaining segregationists.
However, the three remaining segregationists on the Board continued the session, and fired forty-four teachers and administrators who were believed to support racial integration. This purge served as a wake-up call to the city.
Moderates formed STOP (Stop This Outrageous Purge) to recall the segregationist school board members to try to regain control of their community and their public schools.
Segregationist opponents formed CROSS (Committee to Retain our Segregated Schools) and attempted to recall the moderates on the school board. In a twenty day campaign, the opposing sides battled for the hearts of the community.
People of Little Rock had to choose between keeping their beloved teachers and administrators, or bowing to the segregationists' purge. After a year of closed schools and the firing of teachers of both races, the voters of Little Rock narrowly recalled three segregationist School Board members, and the new Board opened schools early for the 1959-60 school year.

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