Author: Michael Kronenwetter
Description: This reference article explains the Little Rock desegregation crisis, during which President Dwight D. Eisenhower called in federal troops to enforce integration and protect African American students after Arkansas governor Orval Faubus resisted desegregation.
Context and Things to Consider
- Note the involvement of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the Little Rock desegregation crisis. What role did the organization and the president of its Arkansas branch play, and how did they work to make the crisis into a civil rights movement success?
- Think about the role the Little Rock desegregation crisis played in the larger civil rights movement. How significant was it that the federal government acted to support and enforce integration with federal troops for an extended period of time?
- Note that President Eisenhower deployed federal troops and federalized members of the Arkansas National Guard in order to enforce a federal court ruling, not to impose a new law. Consider that civil rights activists often demonstrated not for a change in the laws, but for enforcement of the laws that already existed.
The Little Rock desegregation crisis occurred when nine Black students attempted to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957 and Gov. Orval Faubus deployed the state national guard to prevent them from entering the school. The crisis drew attention to the enforcement of the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ruling that school segregation was unconstitutional and fueled the growing civil rights movement.
Little Rock had made some progress toward desegregation. Libraries, parks, and buses were already integrated. The student body of the University of Arkansas Graduate Center was about 50% Black. However, resistance to desegregation was still widespread in the state. In early 1956, Faubus said 85% of Arkansans opposed integrating.
After the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Little Rock school board announced its intention to integrate the school system. School administrators did not expect that there would be problems when nine Black students entered Little Rock's Central High on September 3, 1957. The night before the students' first day, however, Faubus announced on statewide television that it "would not be possible to restore or to maintain order" if integration were carried out the next day, and he ordered the Arkansas National Guard to surround Central High. The state senate also stated that it opposed desegregation.
The nine students postponed their first day until the school board obtained a court order for desegregation. When they arrived on September 4, the Arkansas National Guard blocked their entrance, thus directly challenging the federal government. Also present were white segregationists threatening violence against the students.
On September 20, the district court ordered Faubus to stop interfering with desegregation and remove the troops; he refused. On the morning of September 21, 1,000 segregationists from across the South surrounded Central High. White students chanted, "Two, four, six, eight, we ain't gonna integrate." Meanwhile, at a side entrance to the school that was out of sight, Daisy Bates, the president of the Arkansas branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), accompanied the "Little Rock Nine" into the school.
Little Rock's mayor feared that there would be violence and ordered the nine students to be withdrawn. Bates told the press that the Black students would not attempt to enter Central High again unless President Dwight. D. Eisenhower provided them with protection. That evening, Eisenhower denounced the actions at Central High as disgraceful and ordered those who were obstructing federal law to cease and desist and for the mob to disperse. However, he resisted federal intervention because he favored gradual integration and did not think the South could be forced into racial reform.
The determined segregationists ignored the president. An even larger mob assembled outside the high school on the morning of September 22. Little Rock's mayor, whose police force was vastly outnumbered, called the U.S. Justice Department and asked for federal help. On September 24, 1957, Eisenhower ordered 1,000 troops of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division to go to Little Rock and mobilized 10,000 members of the Arkansas National Guard under federal command. In a nationally televised address, he said it was his duty to preserve the "peace and order of the community." By 5:00 A.M., armed paratroopers from the 101st had surrounded the school. Federal troops picked up the Little Rock Nine from Bates's home and escorted them to school.
The soldiers remained in Little Rock for two months. After the 101st was withdrawn, the federalized Arkansas guardsmen continued to patrol Central High for the rest of the school year, and they escorted the Little Rock Nine to and from school. Despite the presence of the military at the high school, the Little Rock Nine were subjected to constant harassment. The press coverage of the events at Central High drew national attention to enforcement of the Brown decision and also helped energize the growing civil rights movement.
Entry ID: 1510503
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