Sixty-eight years ago, nine courageous teenagers changed the course of history at Little Rock Central High School.
To honor their legacy, we invite you to support the Little Rock Nine Endowment Campaign. Your gift will help grow the Little Rock Nine Scholarship, the only scholarship in the nation carrying their name.
Your gift will help to ensure that the Little Rock Nine Scholarship carries on in perpetuity, and that the group’s courage continues to serve as inspiration for future generations of public service leaders at the Clinton School of Public Service.
“Because of our great appreciation for President Clinton, and in recognition of the extraordinary public service work performed by Clinton School students, we have now decided to make the Clinton School our educational philanthropic focus,” said Carlotta Walls Lanier, the foundation’s spokesperson. “The Clinton School prepares its students in the global arena and what better way to keep our story alive than through those we assist.”
The Little Rock Nine Scholarship at the Clinton School was established in 2013 by Dean Emeritus James L. “Skip” Rutherford III and the Little Rock Nine Foundation. Nearly $30,000 in scholarships have been awarded from the Foundation since 2015.
“At the Clinton School, we believe that our common humanity is a powerful force for sustainable change,” said Dean Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto. “There is no group that better embodies this ideal than the Little Rock Nine. We are proud to play a small role in continuing their legacy as leaders and trailblazers in the form of scholarship support.”
Nine teenagers – Melba Pattillo Beals, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Terrence Roberts, Minnijean Brown Trickey, and the late Jefferson Thomas and Thelma Mothershed Wair – became civil rights icons known as the Little Rock Nine when they integrated Little Rock Central High School on September 25, 1957.
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