EDWARDSVILLE - Thelma Watershed Wair, one of the historical Little Rock Nine who integrated an Arkansas high school in 1957 amidst an angry mob of white separationist and who later graduated from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, has died. She was 83. Wair’s sister, Grace Davis, confirmed to The Associated Press that Wair died Saturday at a hospital in Little Rock from complications of multiple sclerosis. Wair’s history-making story began in 1957 with the other eight students: Melba Pattillo Beals, Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Terrence Roberts and Jefferson Thomas. The students integrated Little Rock Central High School three years after the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954 declared in the Brown vs. Board of Education case, that segregated classrooms were unconstitutional. Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus deployed the National Guard for three weeks to prevent the Little Rock Nine from enrolling in the
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