Civil Rights in the United States: The Promise

The New Yorker has a very moving, and informative, presentation on its website about the history of the civil rights movement in the United States. It has some beautiful photographs of many of the participants, some of them taken at the time, some of them very recent. There are also interviews with many of them. I think my favourite is of the 'Little Rock nine', who as young teenagers registered for Little Rock Central High School in September 1957. They were turned away by the Arkansas National Guard, and only got into the school when President Eisenhower sent federal troops to escort them. I suppose they would have been 13 or 14 years old at the time. And there they are, all nine of them, now pushing seventy, one has a walker, elegantly dressed, proud and dignified as they hold hands in front of their old high school. It's the photo that is at the top in the centre on the web page. A few of them are interviewed briefly. See The New Yorker.