Little Rock 9 member celebrates 80th birthday with students

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Elizabeth Eckford, one of the nine Black students who first integrated Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957, celebrated her 80th birthday at the school with the help of about a dozen students. The students, who are members of the Civil Rights Memory Project, lined the sidewalk in front of the high school on Monday and held handwritten signs. The number of students participating was kept small and they were told not to clap or make loud noises as they gathered outside the same school where an angry mob of protesters had met Eckford and eight other Black students in 1957.