Thelma Mothershed Wair, one of the nine Black students who integrated a high school in Arkansas’ capital city of Little Rock in 1957 while a mob of white segregationists yelled threats and insults, has died at age 83.

Many are mourning the loss of an Arkansan who inspired change for the better and changed African-American education across the nation.

Thelma Mothershed Wair, one of the nine Black students who integrated a high school in Little Rock in 1957 while a mob of White segregationists yelled threats and insults, died Oct. 19 at a hospital in the Arkansas capital city.