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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