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In
its 1954 decision in Brown
v. Board of Education, the United States Supreme Court
held that segregation of children in the public schools solely
on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or
requiring such segregation, denied black children the equal
protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
The unanimous decision provoked widespread criticism, and
occasional defiance, by public officials in states with segregated
schools, and emerged as one of the dominant political issues
affecting politics and public policy throughout the nation
for many years.
Despite
his own reported misgivings about the decision, in 1957 President
Dwight
D. Eisenhower ordered that troops under federal authority
enforce a lower federal court order issued pursuant to the
Brown decision directing the integration of the public schools
in Little Rock, Arkansas. In a televised address,
the President stated that he was forced to act because "...disorderly
mobs have deliberately prevented the carrying out of proper
orders from a Federal Court" and that local authorities
had failed to enforce the order or to disperse the crowds
blocking black students from entering the schools. The President
thus issued orders directing that the Arkansas National Guard
be placed under federal control and that 1,000 U.S. Army paratroopers
from the 101st Airborne Division be sent to assist them in
restoring order. The troops succeeded in quelling the disturbances,
and the schools were opened for integrated enrollment.
Resources:
Eisenhower
and the Little Rock Crisis, Library
of Congress
Little
Rock School Integration Crisis, Dwight
D. Eisenhower Library & Museum
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