The First Twenty-Five: An Oral History of the Desegregation of Little Rock’s Public Junior High Schools

Dr. LaVerne Bell-Tolliver, an Associate Professor of Social Work at UA Little Rock, has compiled the memories of 18 of the first 25 African-American students to enroll in five junior high schools in Little Rock. And while there are similarities that stretch across all the narratives, the most meaningful are the uniquely personal details each participant shares, something their father said, an exchange with a teacher, or the loneliness of being the outsider, the “other.”