Why Little Rock Mattered

Sept. 24, 2007 (50th anniversary of the dispatch of federal troops to Little Rock)

Fifty years ago today, President Eisenhower sent federal troops into Little Rock, Arkansas to defend the right of nine African American students to attend formerly all-white Central High School. For three reasons, Little Rock was an epic event in the modern civil rights movement.

First, the president's willingness to use troops demonstrated that southern school districts could no longer ignore desegregation orders issued by federal courts. Most southern whites preferred to maintain segregated school systems even after the Supreme Court had ruled school segregation unconstitutional in 1954. In fact, between 1955 and 1957, the percentage of southern whites believing that school integration was inevitable decreased. Almost no desegregation occurred in the South during these years, and President Eisenhower showed little inclination to enforce the Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Indeed, during the summer before the Little Rock crisis, the president declared that he could imagine no set of circumstances in which he would use federal troops to enforce court desegregation decrees.

But in September 1957, Eisenhower changed his mind. With the president backing up the Supreme Court, white southerners were left with one avenue to preserve racial segregation -- closing the schools. Governors Orval Faubus of Arkansas and Lindsay Almond of Virginia did close some schools in the fall of 1958, but the costs to local communities proved prohibitive, and public opinion quickly turned against school closures and in favor of token compliance with Brown.

Second, Little Rock was the first in a series of dramatic public confrontations over civil rights that ultimately shifted national opinion in favor of progressive racial change. From the day Brown was decided, opinion polls revealed that most whites outside of the South agreed with the decision, but they mostly favored gradual compliance over aggressive enforcement. In the mid-1950s, southern whites were far more intensely committed to preserving the status quo of racial segregation than were northern whites to changing it.

It was southern white violence against peaceful black civil rights demonstrators that changed national opinion on race. Violent confrontations over school desegregation tended to reveal blacks at their best and whites at their worst. The few blacks who had been handpicked as desegregation pioneers were almost always middle class, bright, well dressed, well mannered, and nonviolent. The mobs fighting to exclude them from white schools tended to be lower class, vicious, profane, unruly, and violent. Media images of these confrontations, according to one contemporary newspaper editorial, showed "quiet, resolute Negro children defying jeers and violence and sadism." One NAACP leader "thanked God for Governor Faubus. He has hastened integration five years by opening the eyes of the country to the kind of thinking that will call out the National Guard to keep nine Negro students out of Little Rock High School."

Third, although Little Rock should have discouraged extremism by demonstrating the futility of massive resistance to Brown, its immediate effect was to further radicalize southern opinion and to empower politicians who promised to defy "federal tyranny." On statewide television, Governor Faubus referred to Little Rock as an "occupied" city, implicitly appealing to the bitter historical memories that Arkansas whites had of the Civil War and of Reconstruction, when federal troops had invaded the South.

Southern whites overwhelmingly supported Faubus and condemned Eisenhower. A North Carolina congressional representative asserted, "The issue of integrated schools is dwarfed by the precipitous and dictatorial stab at the rights of an individual state." Several southern politicians compared the president's use of federal troops at Little Rock to the Soviet Union's invasion of Hungary in 1956. Senator Richard Russell of Georgia condemned the president's use of "storm troopers." In Alabama, circuit judge George Wallace compared Eisenhower to Hitler and accused the president of substituting "military dictatorship for the Constitution of the United States."

Faubus parlayed his defiance of federal authority into a landslide victory in his 1958 quest for a third term as governor; he subsequently won three more consecutive gubernatorial elections. Throughout the South, huge and wildly enthusiastic crowds attended Faubus' speeches, and a national Gallup poll identified him as one of the world's 10 most admired statesmen, along with Eisenhower, Truman, and Churchill. Elsewhere in the South, post-Little Rock political contests featured militant segregationists competing for the most extreme positions and bragging of their willingness to defy federal authority.

The racial extremists elected to office after Little Rock promised uncompromising stands against integration and used incendiary rhetoric that inspired violent resistance. For example, Senator James Eastland of Mississippi condemned Brown as "illegal, immoral, dishonest, and a disgrace" and proclaimed that "resistance to tyranny is obedience to God." Congressman James Davis of Georgia called Brown "a monumental fraud which is shocking, outrageous and reprehensible" and denied that citizens had any obligation "to bow the neck to this new form of tyranny." These politicians either knew that such rhetoric was likely to incite violence, or they were criminally negligent for not knowing it.

When such violence erupted -- in places like Birmingham and Selma, Alabama -- it outraged national television audiences. Newspapers called the violence "a national disgrace." Citizens voiced their "sense of unutterable outrage and shame" and demanded that Congress take action to suppress such "barbarism and savagery." President John F. Kennedy went on national television to announce that civil rights were a "moral issue as old as the scriptures and as clear as the American Constitution," and his administration introduced landmark civil rights legislation. It was the violence inspired by confrontations like the one in Little Rock that made such legislation possible. Ironically, the harder southern whites fought to maintain white supremacy, the more they seemed to accelerate its demise.

Michael J. Klarman is the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia and author of the recently published Unfinished Business: Racial Equality in American History.

This post first appeared on the Oxford University Press blog.

Comments

[Sorcerer]

I ask one simple question.

Would George Bush make the same decision as Eisenhower did in 1954 today, if faced with the same situation?

Two word answer: HELL NO!

Eisenhower must be flipping in his grave. He would not recognize today's republican party.

[elois]

It's ironic that we continue to turn around and around because satin still exist. It really is an issue that needs to be examined at a more executive level for too much racism is causing us to have and exercise more hate. The administrators in our facilities, has gone overboard at expressing greed, which is making it more difficult to act more humanely. Too many people has taken so much for so long that they literally feel that they have the right to and as time passes, we're becoming more hostile because we're tired of people of such caliber, taking from us. I pray that reality hits more people and they learn quicker that when something doesn't belong to you, you must accept that for if you don't, bad things will happen. Enough is enough, is how people feel today.

[Dansden]

The sad and pathetic reality is that ONLY 19 have responded to this blog by the time I found it....registering the anxiety, angst and ancillary interest the issue of RACE still plays in the greatest democracy in the history of the world!

I type this as i watch on C-SPAN 2 the 'Little Rock Nine 50th Anniversary Commemoration' of integration of a Little Rock High School in 1957: 1-9-5-7- America! What a sad commentary that Jena and other recalcitrant neanderthal genuflecting communities are still around in 2007 in America with choruses of KKK Klowns fomenting in the headlines- how despicable, how shameful, how childish and how UNCHRISTIAN this 'so-called Christian nation' has exposed ourselves in this 21st century.

Education still begs for the FACTS of HISTORY to facilitate the TRUTH of our histrionics of RACISM in this land- in this democracy- in this Constitutional experiment- in this century! When a President fights to intimidate American scientists to cover-up the TRUTH of global warming, connives to dismiss Attorney Generals who honor our Constitution by sticking to the FACTS of law rather than the politics of law interns and pardons sleazy lying White House operatives who 'out' our own CIA defense against real terrorism BUT says NOTHING about the rampant and solicitous racism in Jena, it is time TO IMPEACH THAT PRESIDENT FROM OUR HISTORY THAT INCLUDES THE PROUD AND COURAGEOUS 'LITTLE ROCK NINE' TO STAND WHERE AMERICA SHOULD STAND rather than cower where the President now cowers alone in his prejudice and polemics of politicking....

[Texashogfan]

I was a student at Hillcrest Jr High in Fayetteville, Ark in 1957. We were integrated. No separate drinking fountains, no seperate dressing rooms. No big deal. There were inequalities. I recall a black family attending our church around that time and, after the service, the sages of the church met with the family and asked them not to come back. That's when my skepticism of organized religion got its start--- and, with the 'compassionate conservative' decider at the helm, skepticism is full blown cynicism.

[deleweye]

If there's a point to my ramblings, it's that nothing is as simple as it seems:

In later years, Faubus maintained that he acted as he did to force Eisenhower's hand - that given the political realities in Arkansas and the people behind the scenes who called the shots, he couldn't have integrated Central whether he wanted to or not. So by giving the white establishment the defiance they wanted, he maneuvered a reluctant Ike into accepting federal responsibility for enforcing civil rights.

I'm sure there was more than a little after-the-fact rationalization involved, and he wasn't reluctant to accept the accolades - and re-elections - that followed. But he was also a craftier SOB than he's generally given credit for being, and however it happened, that is about the way things unfolded. (And like a lot of "loyal employees", he did remember that he started out as one of the little guys, and always liked to plant a few seeds when he could get away with it.)

It's also interesting that the same money-men were calling the shots when Billy got his annointing, and I doubt they were any more enlightened about civil rights than they had been - just, perhaps, a little more realistic, and a little smarter about picking a front man who could tailor his image to the future instead of the past.

Wheels within wheels...

[Dumbluck]

Faubus was also facing a tough re-election campaign in which he was favored to lose. He won re-election, because of his stance against integration.

[Triastro]

weak

[blooddoc]

Explain, please.

[richw23]

When Central was integrated, I was a ten year old white boy in grade school in Little Rock. Fortunately my parents, though southerners, didn't hold with prejudice. I remember friends who didn't want to go to school with blacks, but really didn't know why. My sister and I played with black kids when we went to visit my grandmother in North Little Rock, but we didn't tell our white friends, I'm ashamed to say. Racism was like a fog so persistent you really didn't see it a lot of the time.

We moved away to Colorado for a few years and moved back for a year in 64, so I went to Central for my jr. year. My father told me to keep my head down, I'm sure to his shame.

There was no real violence when I was there, but there was a stigma attached to whites that associated with blacks. There was one ink-throwing incident as I recall.

I saw some black and white students currently at Central interviewed on television last night. They said there was no racial tension but there was social segregation.

Sounds like nothing much has changed since '64, except maybe there are no more white-only drinking fountains like the one in the machine shop in Stuttgart Arkansas I worked at in the summer of '65.

[PerryWhite]

For those interested in political affiliations, all of the governors and senators mentioned were Democrats.

[richw23]

Of couse they were, it was the south in the 60's. In Arkansas, people only listened to the Democratic primary returns. The general election was a foregone conclusion.

If your point is to caution that Dems are just as capable of being vicious, corrupt hacks, I agree. Right now, though, they aren't the ones close to running us off a cliff.

[richw23]

Yeah, that would be 50's, not 60's. I was still being nostalgic(?) about attending Central.

[FearlessFreep]

The South's anti-black vote moved to the Republican Party after the Civil Rights Act's enactment. Southern whites are now the GOP's most reliable constituency.

[PerryWhite]

A higher percentage of Republican Senators voted for The Civil Rights Act of 1964 than Democratic Senators. Among the Democratic Senators voting against were Albert Gore, Sr. and William Fulbright (Bill Clinton's mentor and one time boss). Did southern blacks then vote predominantly for Republicans? No. So race might not be the entire reason for changes in voting patterns.

[SouthHouse]

Hi Folks--

A compelling article. However, I was struck by the unintended irony of the last paragraph.

To paraphrase vMark Twain, the rumors pertaining to the demise of white supremacy are greatly exaggerated. After fifty years it still survives, comfortable and smug in its neoconservative business suit.

And let us not forget that in the 50 years sinec Little Rock some of the most virulent resistence to integration has occurred north and west the Mason-Dixon line: in Philadelphia, Chicago, Simi Valley, and Boston.

[uheardme]

"...comfortable and smug in its neoconservative business suit."

It also wears a "liberal" suit.

[RealBlackGirl]

How symbolic that we are celebrating this historic event during this crucial election. Unfortunately some people did not learn the lesson. Republicans refuse to debate at Morgan State, Jena 6, a Black woman tortured in Virginia and another missing in Chicago with minimal national media coverage. Worse yet, none of us are sure that Americans are capable of electing Barack Obama to the White House. Despite what's not working we can move forward on the faith of our convictions the same way those courageous children did 50 years ago.

[blooddoc]

Little Rock may have been "the first in a series of dramatic public confrontations over civil rights", but it was not the first school in Arkansas to undergo desegregation. Two years earlier, in 1955, the public school system of the small town of Hoxie in northeast Arkansas was successfully integrated. A handful of local rabble-rousers, abetted by a few outsiders, tried to intervene, but in the end the local school board and citizens of the community stood together in the realization that this was the right thing to do. Black students were not threatened or harassed; rather, members of the school board were. In the end there was no violence and no National Guard. The reason this scenario did not play out in Little Rock is that segregationists (still a minority at the time) saw the stakes as being much higher and reacted accordingly. Compound this with a local community that let complacency dictate their actions, and the result was Eisenhower's invasion with the 101st Airborne. It is a basic human frailty that we sometimes have to learn things the hard way. What is sad is that we still have some of the same racial problems today that we had 50 years ago, all because we simply will not stand together and do the right thing.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Civil rights are all good and fine, but have
an external audit of all this entitlement welfare crap, too...

[uheardme]

While we're at it, let's audit all of this corporate welfare farm subsidy crap,too.

[Dangoodbar]

The comment in regard to "Civil Rights" that "an audit needs to be conducted of entitlement welfare crap" shows that RACISM is still alive and well in America.

That is ending 200 years of racism and government aid for the poor are not one and the same. To equate them so matter of fact as Republicans and many other Americans do is RACISM of the worst kind.

While it is true that race and class are linked in America, what Civil Right actually attempted to do and in fact over time has had some success in doing is BREAKING the link between class and race. And while it has predictably taken decades the civil rights laws of the 1960s have in fact had some success in breaking this link.

Most people of color today are not poor. And for that we have civil rights to thank.

It should be noted here that in Europe and all other industrialized country aid to the less fortunate is much greater then in America. That is because in other industrialized countries the more fortunate people say about the poor, "there but for the grace of god goes me."

Because of the link between class and race the attitude toward the poor in America is quite different. The reason for that difference as aptly named "REALITYTRUMPSBULL" has unintentionally pointed out is RACISM.

[Grit]

Corporate welfare and welfare for the upper 5% richest is what should be audited. Or just done away with. But I can bet that this kind of welfare could pay for welfare for the poor several times over. I can remember the 1950s. It was disgraceful. This country had some mean attitudes. Being poor made doors very hard to open for any opportunity to improve your lot in life. Being the wrong race and poor locked those doors. civil rights laws unlocked those doors, but its still hard for alot of people to open them.