September 25 · This Day in America
On the morning of September 25, 1957, nine Black teenagers ride to Central High School in an Army station wagon, ringed by soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division — battle-tested paratroopers, bayonets fixed, sent by President Eisenhower himself. Two days earlier a mob had forced them out a side door for their own safety. Today they walk in the front. The governor of Arkansas had used the National Guard to keep this school white; the President of the United States federalized that same Guard and put the Army on the steps. The Constitution, Eisenhower decided, would not be a suggestion. The nine endured a year of acid, shoves, and slurs inside those walls. They kept going back. A federal court order had been only words on paper. On this day, a soldier's drawn line made it real, and the front door of an American school finally opened for everyone.
Source: www.history.com
Also on this day · 1981
On September 25, 1981, Sandra Day O'Connor is sworn in as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court — the first woman to sit on the bench in its 191-year history. She had graduated near the top of her Stanford Law class and been offered work only as a legal secretary. The Senate confirmed her 99 to 0. For the first time, the Court that interprets the nation's promises looked a little more like the nation.
Source: www.oyez.org