Thelma Mothershed Wair, Little Rock Nine Student, Dies at 83

Thelma Mothershed Wair, one of nine Black students who became known as the Little Rock Nine for integrating a high school in 1957 during one of the biggest confrontations of the civil rights movement, died on Saturday at a hospital in Little Rock.She was 83.Her death was confirmed by her sister, Grace Davis.

No cause was given.In the fall of 1957, nine Black students enrolled at Little Rock Central High School, the country’s first test for school integration after the 1954 Supreme Court Brown v.Board of Education decision declared “separate but equal” education unconstitutional.In a 2004 oral history interview with the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site, Mrs.

Mothershed Wair recalled seeing Gov.Orval Faubus of Arkansas on television calling on the National Guard to block the students from entering on their first day.

“I thought he meant to protect me,” she said in the 2004 interview.“How wrong I was.”The students faced angry, racist mobs that first day, and the soldiers blocked them from entering the school.

Mrs.Mothershed Wair also recalled seeing cars with out-of-state license plates near the school.For three weeks, Gov.

Faubus defied the federal desegregation order, setting off a crisis across Little Rock.Then President Dwight D.

Eisenhower ordered federal troops to escort the students to school on Sept.25.

“The army has come into our city to put nine kids in a school?” she said she remembered thinking.“Did that make any sense? Was this not America?”With the 101st Airborne Division accompanying them, Mrs.

Mothershed Wair recalled how the mobs that had blocked them from entering school “parted like when Moses stretched out his staff at the Red Sea.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Tha...