Fifty-two years ago, nine African-American students entered the doors of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., marking the desegregation of public schools across the nation.

The history of “The Little Rock Nine” lives on in a new companion exhibit, which opened Thursday at the Richard B. Russell Library.

“With All Deliberate Speed,” an exhibit donated by The Associated Press, and “Measuring Deliberate Speed,” compiled by Jan Levinson, assistant outreach coordinator of the Russell Library, chronicles events preceding and following desegregation.

“We wanted to bring [the AP exhibit] here to make it a companion exhibit with the resources at Russell,” she said. “It was going to be a few cases, but took on a life of its own.”

The AP created “With All Deliberate Speed” in 2007, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Little Rock Crisis. Levinson said the “Measuring Deliberate Speed” exhibit is a response to the AP exhibit.

The “With All Deliberate Speed” exhibit contains reprinted photos and original newspaper clips of AP coverage of desegregation in Little Rock.

“It’s a behind the scenes look at how news coverage happened in the era of civil rights,” Levinson said.

“Measuring Deliberate Speed” examines school desegregation between 1950 and 1961.

“With this exhibit, we look at massive resistance and how white Georgians came up with rhetoric to prevent desegregation,” Levinson said. “We looked at landmark court cases, such as Brown v. Board of Education and those on a more local level, to see how people reacted to resistance.”

Levinson said Georgia ultimately found a way to desegregate schools without closing them or using violence.

“With All Deliberate Speed” is contained within three display cases, and the rest of the exhibit consists of archival pieces from the Russell Library.

One interesting artifact is a telegram from Sen. Richard Russell to President Dwight D. Eisenhower expressing his disapproval of desegregation, and the cost it would have on tax payers, Levinson said. Eisenhower’s response telegram is also on display.

A petition signed by University employees during the 1960s to have Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Hamilton Holmes re-enrolled in the University after administration suspended them to maintain their safety can also be found on display, Levinson said.

The exhibit includes political cartoons by Clifford “Baldy” Baldowski, who Levinson said was unafraid to challenge what was going on during the period of desegregation.

“His drawings talked about the times in a way that are politically powerful,” she said.

Levinson said she wants spectators to view a different perspective of the civil rights period.

“I don’t see it as defending people who fought against desegregation, but why they fought and what Georgians thought,” she said. “A lot of constituent letters show why they didn’t want desegregation.”

Andy Carter, a digital projects archivist for the Russell Library, said he found the exhibit fascinating and found the cartoons particularly important to the archives and materials the University keeps.

“It’s always interesting to see original documents and to see the opinion of times in original form,” he said. “I’m new to Athens, so this history is new to me. I’m not really familiar with the history of the desegregation of Georgia.”