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On Friday, September 10th, U.S. District Judge Ronald N. Davies ruled that the state could not continue to block integration. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus responded to the court order by withdrawing the Arkansas National Guard.

The following Monday, about 100 Little Rock police officers placed wooden barricades around Central High as over a thousand angry white men and women from Arkansas and surrounding states gathered in front of the building. To avoid the mob, the African American students entered the school through a side door. After learning the students were in the building, the crowd went on a rampage.

For 17 days, the Arkansas National Guard kept the "Little Rock Nine" from entering Central High, but did nothing to disperse the crow of angry whites that gathered outside the building.

Despite such praise at home and abroad as from Robeson, the crisis did not end with Green’s education. Reporter Joan I. Duffy of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, explains: