The Little Rock Nine

An Opera by Bernadette Speach & Thulani Davis

The Little Rock Nine tells the story of nine students, ages 14 and 15, who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957-58. The world watched this episode of social change at the time because these young people were the first to test whether it was possible for Americans to end school segregation as ordered by the 1954 Supreme Court ruling known as Brown v. Board of Education. We know now how long a fight that has been but it would not have begun for years more had these nine teens not started and persisted through the terror of the first year, during which they were beaten, set on fire, taunted and threatened with death. Their parents lost jobs and were threatened as well. The opera allows us a peek into the internal lives of the people involved during a time when, to keep the struggle going, they never told anyone what they suffered. Neither children nor parents confided in each other. Using memoirs and interviews from years later, the libretto tells us what was not told then. Eight of the nine survive today.

[More on the Speach/Davis Collaborations.]