The Lions of Little Rock is set in 1958, which is a critical period in the town’s history relative to the issue of racism. A year earlier, nine black students attended white high schools in town, generating enormous controversy over the issue of segregation. 1958 was no less critical because it represented the beginning of the end of the status quo.

Racism in the South had been an entrenched practice for centuries, so much so that no one paid much attention to it. Both whites and blacks accepted the current state of affairs. The events of 1957 challenged that cultural inertia and required people on both sides of the controversy to consciously think about the color line separating some residents of Little Rock from others.

The novel uses the plot device of the friendship between Marlee and Liz to examine prevailing attitudes about racial mixing. Initially, Marlee is oblivious to the presence of people of color in Little Rock. Her first real exposure to them comes in the form of Betty Jean, the family’s new maid. When Liz is outed as Negro, her fellow students express horror. Sally says she threw out a hairbrush that Liz had used because Sally now believes it might contain lice.