Civil Rights: The Little Rock School Integration Crisis
On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education that segregated schools are "inherently unequal." In September 1957, as a result of that ruling, nine African-American students enrolled at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The ensuing struggle between segregationists and integrationists, the State of Arkansas and the federal government, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, has become known in modern American history as the "Little Rock Crisis." The crisis gained world-wide attention. When Governor Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to surround Central High School to keep the nine students from entering the school, President Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock to insure the safety of the "Little Rock Nine" and that the rulings of the Supreme Court were upheld. The manuscript holdings of the Eisenhower Library contain a large amount of documentation on this historic test of the Brown vs. Topeka ruling and school integration.
President Eisenhower meets with Governor Orval E. Faubus and Arkansas Congressman Brooks Hays in Newport, Rhode Island to confer on the Little Rock school integration controversy, September 14, 1957
Press release, President Eisenhower's telegram to Governor Faubus, September 5, 1957 [Gerald D. Morgan Records, Box 6, Civil Rights (2)]
Telegram, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus to President Eisenhower, September 12, 1957 [DDE's Records as President, Official File, Box 732, OF 142-A-5-A (1)]
Press release, statements by President Eisenhower and Governor Faubus from Newport, Rhode Island, September 14, 1957 [Gerald D. Morgan Records; Box 6, Civil Rights (2)]
Diary - notes dictated by President Eisenhower on October 8, 1957 concerning meeting with Governor Faubus at Newport, Rhode Island, September 14, 1957 [DDE's Papers as President, Administration Series, Box 23, Little Rock Ark (2)]
Press release, statement by the President from the U.S. Naval Base, Newport, Rhode Island, September 21, 1957 [Gerald D. Morgan Records, Box 6, Civil Rights (2)]
Telegram, Woodrow Wilson Mann, Mayor of Little Rock, to President Eisenhower, September 23, 1957 [DDE's Records as President, Official File, Box 732, OF 142-A-5-A (2)]
Press release, Proclamation 3204, Obstruction of Justice in the State of Arkansas, by the President of the United States of America, September 23, 1957 [Gerald D. Morgan Records, Box 6, Civil Rights (2)]
Press release, Executive Order 10730, Providing for the Removal of an Obstruction of Justice Within the State of Arkansas, September 24, 1957
Telegram, Woodrow Wilson Mann to President Eisenhower, September 24, 1957 [DDE's Records as President, Official File, Box 732, OF 142-A-5-A (2)]
Letter, President Eisenhower to General Alfred Gruenther, September 24, 1957 [DDE's Papers as President, Administration Series, Box 16, Alfred M. Gruenther 1956-57 (2)]
Handwritten notes by President Eisenhower on decision to send troops to Little Rock, September 1957 [DDE's Papers as President, Administration Series, Box 23, Little Rock, Arkansas (2)]
Press release, containing speech on radio and television by President Eisenhower, September 24, 1957
Draft of above speech on Little Rock, undated
Telephone calls, September 24, 1957 [DDE's Papers as President, DDE Diary Series, Box 27, Sept. 1957 Telephone Calls]
Telephone calls, September 25, 1957 [DDE's Papers as President, DDE Diary Series, Box 27, Sept. 1957 Telephone Calls]
Telegram, Congressman Oren Harris, Arkansas, to President Eisenhower, September 26, 1957 [DDE's Records as President, Official File, Box 732, OF 142-A-5-A (3)]
Telegram, Georgia Senator Richard B. Russell to President Eisenhower, September 26, 1957
Letter, President Eisenhower to Senator Russell, September 27, 1957 [DDE's Papers as President, Administration Series, Box 23, Little Rock Ark (2)]
Letter, President Eisenhower to Congressman Oren Harris, September 30, 1957 [DDE's Records as President, Official File, Box 732, OF 142-A-5-A (3)]
Telegram, parents of the nine Africian-American students to President Eisenhower, October 1, 1957 [DDE's Records as President, Official File, Box 732, OF 142-A-5 (3)]
Telegram, Senator John Stennis, Mississippi, to President Eisenhower Eisenhower, October 1, 1957 [DDE's Records as President, Official File, Box 732, OF 142-A-5-A (4)]
Letter, President Eisenhower to Mr. W.B. Brown, October 4, 1957 (identical letter sent to each set of parents) [DDE's Records as President, Official File, Box 732, OF 142 A-5-A (5)]
Letter, President Eisenhower to Senator Stennis, October 7, 1957 [DDE's Records as President, Official File, Box 733, OF 142-A-5-A (7)]
Letter, J. Lee Rankin, U.S. Solicitor General, to Sherman Adams, Assistant to the President, concerning list of Court orders and plans for school desegregation, October 28, 1957 [DDE's Records as President, Official File, Box 732, OF 142-A-5 (4)]
Attachment to Rankin letter listing court orders and plans for school desegregation, undated [DDE's Records as President, Official File, Box 732, OF 142-A-5 (4)]
Situation Report No. 176, by the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Military Operations, December 17, 1957 [Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries]
Situation Report No. 211, February 6, 1958 [Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries]
Situation Report No. 217, February 14, 1958 [Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries]
Situation Report No. 218, February 17, 1958 [Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries]
Situation Report No. 226, February 27, 1958 [Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries]
Situation Report No. 233, March 10, 1958 [Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries]
Letter, Jackie Robinson to President Eisenhower, May 13, 1958 [DDE's Records as President, Official File, Box 731, OF 142-A (6)]
Letter, President Eisenhower to Jackie Robinson, June 4, 1958 [DDE's Records as President, Official File, Box 731, OF 142-A (6)]
For a listing of collections at the Eisenhower Presidential Library with materials pertaining to this topic, please see: Civil Rights School Integration Subject Guide.
Secondary sources on this topic include:
The Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights by Robert F. Burk, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984.
A Moderate Among Extremists: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the School Desegregation Crisis by James C. Duram, Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1981.
The White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956-1961 by Dwight D. Eisenhower, Heinemann: London, 1966.
Crisis at Central High by Elizabeth Huckaby, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980.
Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality by Richard Kluger, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976.
Black Man in the White House by E. Frederic Morrow, New York: Coward-McCann, 1963
