Original photograph album documenting the recently desegregated Little Rock Air Force Base Elementary School, in Jacksonville, Arkansas, 1962-1963 by [Education] [Civil Rights Movement] - 1963

Jacksonville, AR: Little Rock Airforce Base Elementary, 1963. Vintage photograph album for the newly desegregated Little Rock Air Force Base Elementary School in Jacksonville, Arkansas. Album covers the 1962-1963 school year, with "Album / Little Rock Airforce Base Elementary / Jacksonville, Arkansas" in gilt on the front wrapper.

The 27 page album includes 27 10 x 8 inch photographs, with two photographs laid in. A poignant glimpse into the actual classrooms at the heart of the battles over integration at one of its many flash points, capturing the period between Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

One of the most extreme examples of resistance to the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling was the 1957-1958 response by Arkansas' segregationist governor Orval Faubus. When the "Little Rock Nine" were blocked entry by the Arkansas Army National Guard, deployed by governor Faubus, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower deployed US Army troops to ensure Black students could safely register for and attend classes. Instead of capitulating, the Little Rock School District shut down all of its schools during the 1958 school year.

By 1962 almost all of the schools in the Pulaski County Special School District (PCSSD) remained segregated-the exception being the children of African American service members at the Little Rock Air Force Base Elementary School, documented in the album on offer.

According to an 2019 article by Arkansas historian Jeffrey Stewart, "desegregation came only through the exertions of an entity not usually associated with school integration-the Department of Defense. Because the PCSSD enrolled students who were children of military and civilian personnel assigned to the Little Rock Air Force Base, it received federal financial aid. The Department of Defense used this funding as leverage to encourage the PCSSD to integrate, albeit on a limited scale, in 1959. The case of the PCSSD provides an early example of how effective the threat to terminate federal funding could be once the 1964 Civil Rights Act enabled it to be applied to all school systems Yet the advent of integration in the PCSSD remains unique, for it appears that this was the only occasion in which the Department of Defense used its control over funding to influence desegregation in a school district." Stewart later specifies, "A total of fourteen black students, all children of Air Force Base personnel, were attending the Air Base Elementary School, Jacksonville Junior High School, or Jacksonville Senior High School-the only three integrated schools in the district as of 1962."

Album: 11.5 x 8.5 inches, bound internally with a comb binding. Very Good plus, with edgewear, rubbing, and cracking at the extremities.

Contents: 10 x 8 inches. Near Fine.

Laid-in photographs: 10 x 8 inches. Very Good plus, with light creasing overall.