The Year of 1957

Little Rock

Little Rock Nine, they're called; nine black children who were chosen to attend Central High in Little Rock Arkansas. Following the court case Brown V. Board of Education, the schools had to begin "integration": enrolling black students in white schools. Nine children were selected from Horace Mann High school, which was traditionally a school for black children, to attend Central High. The children were first scheduled to enter their first day of school on September 2, 1957. The governor of Little Rock, Faubus, requested that the National Guard come to the school to "ward off the white supremacists" who had gathered there to protest the integration.

The nine were instructed to assemble a few blocks away so they could walk in together, however one girl named Elizabeth Eckford did not get the message. She met with the mob at the school, and they harassed her while the National Guard watched. Had two whites not intervened, Eckford could have been subject to the mercy of the crowd. The story continues September 20th, when Judge Davies granted the NAACP an injunction, disallowing Faubus from using the National Guard any longer.

On September 23, the nine finally entered the school. They were subject to the hatred of the other students, and outside the school, mobs beat black reporters. At only 11:30, police stated that they could no longer contain the mob, and the children had to be escorted from the school through a back door. To enable the children to complete a full day at school, president Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to guard the children. They needed it, too; the other students threw dynamite and acid, as well as stabbing one girl named Melba Pattillo. The acid would have blinded Pattillo, had her guard not thrown water on her face immediately. Eventually, the year ended, and Ernest Green was the first black to graduate from Central High.

Faubus had no intention of letting the others graduate as well, so he asked for an injunction to delay integration (again). This was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1958. Faubus then signed a bill which gave him the power to close the schools. This, however, was found unconstitutional, and the schools soon reopened. This momentous occasion was a landmark event in American history; it marked the first huge step away from "separate, but equal". The black children, only 8 of whom graduated, proved to the world that they could succeed, and withstand such hatred all the while.

Pasternak

Boris Pasternak was a well known Russian author, born February 10th 1890. He lived to see the Bolshevik Revolution, and the birth of the Soviet Union. As an author, living under the Bolshevik regime was stifling; all works of art were scrutinized for any hint of political propoganda. If anyone so much as thought your work was propoganda against the Revolution, then the government could detain you for an unspecified amount of time, or worse: kill you.

Pasternak was reluctant to publish his poems and works, and thus made a living translating famous works into Russian, such as Shakespeare, Goethe, and other poets. Pasternak moved to another town called Peredelkino, and with his wife was very happy there. There he wrote his renouned novel, Doctor Zhivago, and tried to publish it. The Soviet authorities refused to allow Pasternak to publish, however he was able to smuggle his book out of the country. It became an instant success in Italy, and was soon translated into other languages and spread to other countries.

The success of the book was so great that it had won a Nobel Prize in 1958, although that may have been partly because the CIA wanted to embarass the Soviets. Pasternak could not accept the Prize, unfortunately, due to the threats of the Soviet government. Pasternak lived in fear for quite a while, although in the end the government decided not to deal with Pasternak at all. Pasternak's life was taken by lung cancer on May 30th, 1960. Pasternak was an example to the world that, no matter how oppressive your government is, the voice of the people lives the longest.

Mickey Mantle

Mickey Mantle was one of the greatest baseball players in United States history. Born in Spavinaw, Oklahoma October 20th, 1931. During his professional career in 1951-1968, he played for the New York Yankees, and made several world records. Mantle still holds today the record for most world series home runs: a total of 18, and 536 in all.

Mantle played a large role in American society; he distracted people from their daily lives: life was very morose in the late 1950s, and the people idolized people like Mantle to draw their attention away from their life at work, or home.

Kerouac

Jack Kerouac was an American writer in the 1950s, born March 12th 1922. In the 1950s, he began writing "On the Road"; a collection of writings. He tried to write his experiences in "On the Road" as they were occurring, and thus the style of the writing was very different from other authors of his time. He attempted to publish his works, however no publisher would accept his works until in 1957, when Viking Press purchased "On the Road", albeit with some major revisions. The book soon became a great success, and he was portrayed as the icon of the "beatnik" generation.

The Beatniks were people who tried to live an ascetic life style; in otherwords, they lived an anti materialistic life. With his newfound fame, he tried to live up to his crazy image he portrayed in "On the Road" and developed a bad drinking habbit. On the surface, to the media, he appeared like the crazy counter-culture author who wrote "On the Road", but in reality, he was worse off than the average american man of that time; in reality, he was a miserable, unstable, alcoholic. His health gravely detrimented, he died in 1969 at 40 years old.

Sputnik

The first ever artificial space satellite, dubbed sputnik, was launched by the Soviet Union on October 4th, 1957. This was a momentous occaision for the world; never before had man launched something of their own creation into Earth's orbit; so why was America uneasy?

At the time, the Cold War was still a very real event to both America and the Soviet Union. When the Soviets could launch an artificial satellite in space, America feared that the soviets could use this new technology to begin nuclear war. Thus, the "Space Race" began. Not to be outdone by the U.S.S.R., the American government created such divisions as NASA in 1958, and soon America launched their own satellite into space; the Explorer.

Chou En-Lai

Chou En-Lai, also known as Zhou Enlai, was the successor to Mao Zedong, the revolutionist that formed the Chinese Communist government, as the second chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) as well as the first Premier and Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China.

Chou En-Lai started his political involvement at a young age. While attending Nankai University, he worked to bridge together the all male Tianjin Student Union and the female Women's Patriotic Association. He founded the awareness society and worked diligently as the editor-in-chief of the student paper, The Tianjin Student. After many years of continued work, he was caught sight of by the Communist Party. He was selected to go to France to "study." After Chou's studies, he worked for the rising Communist Party, which he put his full effort into.

A skilled and able diplomat, Zhou served as the Chinese foreign minister from 1949 to 1958. Advocating peaceful coexistence with the West, he participated in the 1954 Geneva Conference and helped orchestrate Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China. Due to his expertise, Zhou was largely able to survive the purges of high-level Chinese Communist Party officials during the Cultural Revolution. His attempts at mitigating the Red Guard's damage and his efforts to protect others from their wrath made him immensely popular in the Revolution's later stages. Zhou was a moderate force and a new influential voice for non-aligned states in the Cold War; his diplomacy strengthened regional ties with India, Burma, and many southeast Asian countries, as well as African states. Zhou was largely responsible for the re-establishment of contacts with the West in the early 1970s. He welcomed US President Richard Nixon to China in February 1972, and signed the Shanghai Communiqué.

Zhou's position, granted to him by Mao Zedong, was part of the chinese socialism movement while Mao enacted his "great leap forward" plan for the chinese society.

"Bridge on the River Kwai"

"Bridge on the River Kwai" was a British film in 1957 that depicted the life for British and American soldiers in a Japanese prisoner of war (PoW) camp. The film was a huge success and won 7 Oscar awards as well as another 25 award wins and 5 nominations in various movie award shows around the world.

According to the plot summary from IMBD.com, the film deals with the situation of British prisoners of war during World War II who are ordered to build a bridge to accommodate the Burma-Siam railway. Their instinct is to sabotage the bridge but, under the leadership of Colonel Nicholson, they are persuaded that the bridge should be constructed as a symbol of British morale, spirit and dignity in adverse circumstances. At first, the prisoners admire Nicholson when he bravely endures torture rather than compromise his principles for the benefit of the Japanese commandant Saito. He is an honorable but arrogant man, who is slowly revealed to be a deluded obsessive. He convinces himself that the bridge is a monument to British character, but actually is a monument to himself, and his insistence on its construction becomes a subtle form of collaboration with the enemy. Unknown to him, the Allies have sent a mission into the jungle, led by Warden and an American, Shears, to blow up the bridge.

This movie provided a distraction from the reality and situation of the current cold war. It displayed the brutality of a PoW camp, and the hardships of war, in general, in a pleasant, romanticized, Hollywood perspective that was inviting and entertaining for all citizens. It gave people a false ease that war was not as terrible as it was portrayed.

This movie had a brilliant cast and told its story with accuracy. The movie is generally associated with the tune "Colonial Bogey March" and often referred in pop culture.