1959 Governor Orval Faubus' Protest Picture Analysis

Joe Tsuong

Professor Bates

11/21/13

Exam 2(1959 Governor Orval Faubus’ protest)

The picture I have chosen to analyze is from an event that happened in 1959 when Arkansas governor Orval Faubus hosted a protest against the assimilation/integration of African American students into white segregated high schools. Notably, there are 4 aspects to observe from this picture that tells us about the relative era of the 1950-1960’s.

The first observation to make about this picture is the type of people that participated in this protest event. From the two pictures of this event, all of the participants were of white/caucasian race. Because this picture was taken in 1959, this was during a time where white people had more civil rights than those of other ethnic groups, especially African-Americans. Even the kids and the sheriff were white, which tells us that the segregated laws of the United States, in that time, were influencing society as a whole.

The second observation is the Confederate States of America flag held by a protestor. The Confederate flag symbolizes a formerly seceded southern section of the United States over slavery law issues back during the Civil War. This time, the issue is now about whether or not to integrate African-Americans into white segregated communities like school. The idea of the flag being present there is to hint out that these group of white people threaten to secede from those fighting for civil rights if future incidents prove the progression of the Civil Rights Movement. In another point of view, the Confederate flag was there to further display their belief of racism and race separatism.

Third observation that I want to point out are the signs held by the protestors that wrote “Race Mixing is Communism.” Since this was taken place during 1959, this was also during the time of the Cold War. Communism was America’s ideological enemy, and was something Americans feared the most. Even when the word “Communism” or “Communist”...