In the year following the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School, all high schools in the Little Rock School District were closed to avoid integration. The teachers were still employed and often used as substitutes for lower grade levels, but no student received any high school-level instruction in Little Rock public schools that year.
In May of 1959, Elizabeth Huckaby was one of forty-four educators from Central High School to be fired by the Little Rock School Board. Community members that supported integration and that wanted the fired educators to be given back their positions came from a committee known as STOP (Stop This Outrageous Purge). Before the school year began in August 1959, a recall election removed three segregationist school board members from office and the fired educators were rehired for the 1959-1960 school year.
The Lost Year ended in June of 1959 when the federal court ruled that closure of schools and withholding of funds was unconstitutional. In August, Little Rock high schools reopened and integration resumed.
Elizabeth Huckaby’s papers have a gap between the school reopening in 1959 and her retirement. Huckaby taught until 1969 when she retired after thirty-nine years of teaching and began working on her book, Crisis at Central High.
