The cheerleader moms of the civil rights movements were the mothers who did not want their children mixing with the African American students. They were usually working class women who would get together to plan what they would do to these innocent children. These groups of moms weren’t small either. Imagine being a little boy or girl walking into a new school, meanwhile having over 1,000 white protesters screaming threats. The things done are now looked upon as wrong, but the worst part is back then these moms thought this was okay.
Most of the integration took place in the south. Places such as Virginia, Tennessee, and Louisiana. Although most took place in the south, there was still integration in the northern states. One of the most famous cases of the cheerleader moms was in Arkansas at Little Rock Central High School with the Little Rock Nine. The other famous case was at William Frantz Elementary school in New Orleans. These two occurrences of the cheerleaders gained national attention, and had a major impact on stopping segregation once and for all.
The cheerleader moms did unthinkable things. They harassed the children calling them racial slurs physically attacking them. They would push them down and kick them until they bleed. The moms would spit on them, threw things such as acid, something no mom or any human being would think of doing today. All of this was done solely because they didn’t want their daughters and sons going to school with African Americans. There was a court order against racial discrimination but an organized rally of 5,000 white parents fought against it. Leader Perez, an anti civil rights leader infamously said, “ Don’t wait for your daughter to be raped by these Congolese. Don’t wait until the burr-heads are forced into your schools. Do something about it now.”
Most school integration took place from 1954 to 1963. The supreme court case of Brown vs. Board Of Education had the result of outlawing segregation in public schools in 1954, and was evidently the kick off of cheerleader moms. Once integration slowly was happening, the moms were outraged. Yes, segregation was not technically legal in public schools but that did not stop the crazed mothers of white children. Police officials could not even keep the cheerleaders away from the integrating students. On the Little Rock Nine’s first day, the police had to sneak them out of the school to get them safely home because the moms had broken barriers to get in the school and chase them down.
The cheerleader moms did not want their children going to school with the african americans students. They were complete racists, that was pretty much the normal in the 50’s and 60’s. They thought that, “whites are smarter than people of color, and that white people are more hardworking.” White people expected black people to follow a list of rules. These rules included, never assert that a white person is lying, never impute dishonorable intentions to a white person, never curse a white person, and to never comment on a white woman's appearance. Their beliefs are very hard to comprehend in today's society.