The Test of Brown vs. Board : DISNEY DEPICTS THE CASE OF LITTLE ROCK’S ERNEST GREEN, WHO FOUGHT FOR HIS EDUCATION

Ernest Green didn’t plan to be a hero. He just wanted the best education possible. But Green and eight other African-American teens ended up changing the course of U.S. history in 1957, when they integrated all-white Central High in Little Rock, Ark.

This civil rights watershed is depicted in “The Ernest Green Story,” Sunday on the Disney Channel.

Little Rock became the testing ground of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the 1954 case of Brown vs. the Board of Education, which held that segregation in America’s public schools was unconstitutional and ordered the schools integrated. (A PBS movie tells the story of the Brown case. See facing page.)

The case split the town when black students applied to the school board to attend Central High, which they believed was superior to the schools they were attending. Board members chose nine students they believed were academically qualified and unlikely to cause trouble. One of them was Ernest Green.

The day before school started, Gov. Orval E. Faubus called out the Arkansas National Guard, ostensibly to maintain order at the school; in reality the guard prevented the Little Rock Nine from entering the school. Three weeks later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower forced the governor to remove the National Guard and sent 1,200 federal troops to occupy the grounds of Central High so the students could enter.

The group made it through the school year--Green, the only senior, graduated--in part by following the nonviolent teachings of a young Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Not coincidentally, Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

The civil rights movement has long been a subject close to the hearts of executive producers Carol Abrams and Adrienne Levin, who were high school students in 1957. “We were the same age as those students,” Abrams said. “It was extremely poignant for us. It was on the front page of the New York Times from Sept. 1 until the end of the month, every day while the troops were there.”

“I think at that impressional age; it was a horrifying event,” Levin said.

“This was before (the terms) black and African-American were used,” Abrams said. “It was still Negro; it was colored. Historically, it was the first time since the Civil War that there was this head-on confrontation between state and federal rights. It was a very dramatic event.”

As dramatic as the event was, Levin and Abrams realize that most of today’s young people are not familiar with it. “When Ernie and the others went back for their 30th reunion, they spoke at Central High, and there were students in the audience who never knew that happened there,” Abrams said. (Central High is fully integrated today and has an African-American principal.)

Morris Chestnut (“Boyz N the Hood,” “Out All Night”), who plays Green, admitted that he had little knowledge of Green’s story. “It was devastating to me that it happened,” said Chestnut, 23, who was raised in Cerritos. “I grew up in a different era. I wouldn’t have stood for that (treatment), but back then they had to stand for it. There really was nothing they could do.”

Green, now a managing director at the investment firm of Lehman Brothers in Washington, served as a senior adviser to Bill Clinton during his campaign. He said several producers had approached him over the decades about a film, but he had turned down all requests until he met Levin and Abrams. “The chemistry seemed a little bit better,” Green said, adding that he thought the time was right to tell his story.

“The idea was to show lots of kids, particularly African-American kids, that there were lots of pieces that went into (the civil rights movement),” Green said. “As I like to describe it--small people who sacrificed a lot, like the parents and others who supported it. That’s been a piece that has been missing, I think, in a lot of the television on the civil rights period. It is an important item for young people, in particular African-Americans, to understand.”

Green said he understands why the incident is now practically forgotten. “It seems like a bygone era,” he said. “It was something that wasn’t 30 years ago, but 400 years ago. (Kids) just have no focus on it. I think (the movie) is an important endeavor in both looking back and trying to figure out where we are going for the future. You look back at the history of the city and the school, and it has significantly improved.

“Through an experience like this you grow up,” Green said.

“You are able to benefit from it, and that is sort of the inner message we are trying to get through to young people: It may be difficult at this point, but it doesn’t mean it will be difficult forever.”

The movie was filmed in Little Rock, which welcomed the production last year. The city, Levin said, was “extremely generous of spirit and anxious to have the community part of this project.”

“The Ernest Green Story” premieres Sunday at 7 p.m. on the Disney Channel . It repeats Monday at 3 p.m., Saturday at 9 p.m. and Jan. 29 at 8 p.m.