After the rousing success of the 1956 bus boycotts in the south, the NAACP decides to force the government to make good on the 1954 Brown vs. The Board of Education decision - which declared segregated schools to be illegal - by putting black students in white schools. The first test is Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, a decision wrought with so much violent feedback that Governor Orville Faubus is forced to call out the National Guard. The nine students selected for the experiment are met with all manner of bullying, despite the fact that each has been given a state trooper to walk them to class. The year is rough, at best, and one black student after another is dropped for one reason or another. As the year closes, Central High School graduates 601 white students, and 1 black. The next test case takes place at the all-white University of Mississippi, in which a black college hopeful named James Meredith attempts to register and is met with resistance from Mississippi's Governor Ross Barnett who is fire-brand segregationist and determines to keep Meredith out despite a determination by President Kennedy that he be enrolled. The resistance leads Kennedy to send in Federal troops, but the student body responds with an on-campus riot. Finally, Meredith is admitted despite the violent opposition.
—Jerry Roberts <armchairoscars@hotmail.com>