In Remember Little Rock Erin Krutko Devlin explores public memories surrounding the iconic Arkansas school desegregation crisis of 1957 and shows how these memories were vigorously contested and sometimes deployed against the cause. Delving into a wide variety of sources, from memoirs to televised docudramas, commemoration ceremonies, and the creation of Little Rock High museums, Devlin reveals how many white moderates proclaimed Little Rock a victory for civil rights and educational equality even as segregation persisted. At the same time, African American activists, students, and their families asserted their own stories in the ongoing fight for racial justice.

Devlin also demonstrates that public memory directly bears on law and policy. She argues that the triumphal narrative of civil rights has been used to stall school desegregation, support tokenism, and to roll back federal court oversight of school desegregation, voter registration, and efforts to promote diversity in public institutions. Remember Little Rock examines the chasm between the rhetoric of the "post–­civil rights" era and the reality of enduring racial inequality.

Erin Krutko Devlin is assistant professor of history and American studies at University of Mary Washington.

"Erin Krutko Devlin revisits well-trodden ground and interrogates the triumphal narrative held aloft in public memory, crafted by those who did not support desegregation. Rather than dwelling on the events of the 1957-1958 Little Rock Central High School crisis, she focuses on the politics of memory and memory-making. In doing so, Devlin poses significant questions."—Journal of American History

"Devlin has provided a useful tool for extending conversations of Brown and Little Rock. She provides a forceful argument that many historians of education will embrace: memories of education's past matter to how we understand educational issues and actors in the present."—History of Education Quarterly

"Erin Krutko Devlin's Remember Little Rock is a well-researched, well-argued, and incredibly well-written book that offers a wide-range of insights to everyone from undergraduates with only a cursory understanding of the heroic efforts of the Little Rock Nine to historians studying the public memory of the civil rights movement."—The Public Historian

"Remember Little Rock offers lessons extending beyond its geographic focus—about how the past is remembered, and about the development and implementation of civil rights and education policy . . . In light of persistent inequities in education, and resegregation in many urban areas, Remember Little Rock provides an important framework for understanding the past to those committed to integration and racial equality."—American Historical Review

"No other book has taken a 'long view' of how the 1957 Little Rock desegregation crisis has been interpreted for the public."—Johanna Miller Lewis, author of Artisans in the North Carolina Backcountry

"Devlin has written an important book that shows the 'concrete connections between the architects of passive resistance in the 1950s and their colorblind counterparts at the turn of the 21st century' . . . If we hope to continue the struggle for racial justice in the United States, this book reminds us, we will first need to challenge the distorted historical narratives that support the status quo."—Journal of African American History

"This study documents how much of the commemoration of the Little Rock crisis has been fashioned to advance a narrative of passive progress and racial reconciliation while diverting judicial, parental, local, and civic attention away from continuing racial segregation and discrimination. Devlin also devotes significant attention to the efforts of civil rights leaders and members of the local black community to construct alternative narratives of the crisis . . . and combat injustice."—Jill Ogline Titus, author of Brown's Battleground: Students, Segregationists, and the Struggle for Justice in Prince Edward County, Virginia

"Focusing much needed attention on public memories of the 1957 desegregation crisis at Little Rock's Central High School, Erin Krutko Devlin's Remember Little Rock serves as a powerful reminder of the contemporary limits of civil rights-era achievements."—The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

"Devlin has skillfully illustrated how the public discourse surrounding the Little Rock crisis created a gaping chasm between a false narrative of a victory for civil rights and the sobering reality of persistent racial inequality. Thanks to Devlin's ardent, self-assured prose, Remember Little Rock rises above homage and pastiche to debunk the notion that that city's iconic face-off with race was the defining blow to school segregation."—Journal of African American History