The Women's Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools was formed in Sept. 1958. It was established in response to the closing of Little Rock's four public high schools by Gov. Orval Faubus. After the schools were reopened in Sept. 1959 the name was changed to the Women's Emergency Committee. The WEC was founded by a group of women led by Adolphine Fletcher Terry, a member of a prominent Little Rock family. Terry, Mrs. Vivion Brewer, and Mrs. J.O. Powell organized the first meeting which fifty-eight women attended. The membership of the WEC eventually grew to over 1600 women. The stated purpose of the Committee was to inform the people of Little Rock and Arkansas of the need for public education and of the price of not having public schools. In the five years of its existence, the WEC opposed Faubus and his forces on numerous occasions. The most successful confrontations for the WEC were the Little Rock School Board recall election in May 1959, in which three Faubus supported segregationalists were removed from the board, and the defeat of Amendment 52, which would have abolished the constitutional guarantee of free public schools, in Nov. 1960. The WEC was also involved in school board and political contests through much of its history, principally the Joe Hardin-Orval Faubus race in 1960 and the Sid McMath-Faubus race in 1962.
From the description of Women's Emergency Committee records, 1958-1963. (Arkansas History Commission). WorldCat record id: 166428621
From the description of Women's Emergency Committee records. Supplement, 1959-1960 [microform]. (Arkansas History Commission). WorldCat record id: 251481240
