Eisenhower Sends 101st Airborne to Little Rock

President Dwight D. Eisenhower did not want to send the Army into Arkansas. The former Supreme Allied Commander had spent months trying to resolve the Little Rock school desegregation crisis through negotiation. But on September 24, 1957, after Governor Orval Faubus defied a federal court order and used the Arkansas National Guard to block nine Black students from entering Central High School, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and dispatched 1,200 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the law. The crisis had been building since the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision declared school segregation unconstitutional. Little Rock's school board adopted a gradual desegregation plan beginning with Central High, and nine carefully selected Black students prepared to enroll for the fall 1957 semester. Faubus, facing a reelection campaign, calculated that defying integration would boost his standing with white voters. On September 4, National Guard troops surrounded Central High and turned the nine students away at bayonet point. A white mob screamed racial slurs and threatened violence. Elizabeth Eckford, who had not received the message to gather with the other eight students, walked alone through the crowd in an image that shocked the nation and the world. Eisenhower met privately with Faubus on September 14 and believed he had secured a commitment to comply. Instead, Faubus withdrew the Guard entirely, leaving the students unprotected. When the nine entered the school on September 23, a mob of over a thousand white segregationists rioted outside. Police removed the students for their safety. The 101st Airborne arrived the next day. Paratroopers with fixed bayonets escorted the students through the front doors of Central High School on September 25. Soldiers remained stationed at the school for the rest of the academic year, and federalized Guard members stayed through the spring of 1958. The deployment marked the first time since Reconstruction that a president had sent federal troops into the South to protect the constitutional rights of Black citizens, establishing that the executive branch would use military force to enforce desegregation orders.