Crisis in Little Rock

Crisis in Little Rock

In the essay Crisis in Little Rock, author William Doyle describes the story of the Little Rock Nine a group of African-American students who were enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in September of 1957. The ensuing Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, and then attended after the intervention of President Eisenhower, is considered to be one of the most important events in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. On their first day of school, troops from the Arkansas National Guard would not let them enter the school and they were followed by mobs making threats to lynch. I will discuss the role of the National Guard in this crisis as well as Governor Orval Faubus, and President Eisenhower’s role in the decision making that helped create the crisis as well as stop it to an extent.

Elizabeth Eckford, one of the students from the Little Rock Nine had got off the bus and was walking towards the school when she saw a crowd of white people swarming around her yelling disgusting insults and murderous threats. She had noticed the soldiers at the entrance to the school and when she walked towards the entrance one soldier waved her away and when she tried to pass another duo of soldiers, him and his partner in crime lifted their M-1 rifle and blocked her from entrance to the school. The soldiers were Arkansas National Guardsmen and their Commander was Democratic governor Orval Eugene Faubus. Faubus was as Doyle put it “a hound dog-faced populist” and at the time was also facing reelection. Fearing backlash from white voters Faubus went on with serving his constituents hate towards integration and ordered the National Guard to not let the black students into the school, which is more of an extreme position than a moderate one. Mr. Faubus’s orders was in defiance of Federal court orders and the United States Supreme Court’s ruling...