November 29, 1940

Thelma Mothershed Wair, one of the Little Rock Nine, was born in Bloomberg, Texas. She attended Dunbar Junior High School and Horace Mann High School before becoming one of nine African-American students to desegregate Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Despite daily tormenting from some white students, she completed her junior year at the formerly all-white high school. Because the city’s high schools were closed the following year, she earned the necessary credits for graduation through correspondence courses and by attending summer school in St. Louis, Missouri.

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