Coin honors Ark. students’ 1957 struggle
Fifty years ago, nine black students faced down a mob to integrate Little Rock Central High School. Now, they are being honored on a commemorative silver coin.
The U.S. Mint introduced the coin Saturday at the NAACP’s Daisy Bates Education Summit, which pays tribute to the Arkansas NAACP leader who served as advisor to the Little Rock Nine.
One side of the $1 coin depicts a group of students being escorted by a soldier. It features the phrase “Desegregation in Education” and contains nine stars. The other side depicts Central High as it looked in 1957.
Integration at Central was the first major test of the Supreme Court’s ruling, three years earlier, against racial discrimination in public schools.
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