Activity
Elizabeth Eckford and Courage Virtue in Action
Founding Principles
Virtues
Directions
- I can identify areas in their own lives that require them to act with courage.
Elizabeth Eckford showed courage in her willingness to join a group of young people who volunteered to desegregate their local high school, knowing it would come at a great personal cost. This display of courage took place at a pivotal moment in U.S. history on a national stage, but courage can also take place in smaller ways in daily life.
1. Create a list of things in your daily life that require courage.
2. Circle one item in your list to explore further.
3. Why must you show courage to do this task?
4. Using the example of Elizabeth Eckford as your guide, how can you motivate or challenge yourself to have courage in completing this task?
Handout
Standards
More from this category
By the end of this section, you will explain how and why the civil rights movements developed and expanded from 1945 to 1960.
How did Dwight D. Eisenhower's respond to the Little Rock Crisis? Ask students to asses President Eisenhower's constitutional justification for his decision to send federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas to enforce a federal court's order to integrate public schools.
The Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), with its declaration that segregated public schools were unconstitutional, overturned decades of precedent and challenged deeply-held social traditions. Southern resistance to the decision was widespread. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was not enthusiastic about federal judicial intervention in public education, but he carried out his constitutional responsibility to enforce the law by implementing desegregation in the District of Columbia. Not all state governments were quick to comply with the Supreme Court’s order to integrate “with all deliberate speed” and many fought against it openly. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus ordered his state’s National Guard to block the entry of nine newly-enrolled African American students to Central High School in Little Rock. A violent mob gathered in front of the school, and city police failed to control it. Finally, when asked for assistance by the Mayor of Little Rock, President Eisenhower believed his constitutional duty to take care that the laws were faithfully executed left him no choice but to intervene, even to the point of using military force against American citizens.