SOURCE A

In Little Rock, Arkansas, under the leadership of demagogic extremists, disorderly mobs have deliberately prevented the carrying out of proper orders from a Federal Court. Local authorities have not eliminated that violent opposition.

Whenever normal agencies prove inadequate to the task and it becomes necessary for the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to use its powers and authority to uphold Federal Courts, the President’s responsibility becomes inescapable. I have today issued an Executive Order directing the use of troops under Federal authority to aid in the execution of Federal Law at Little Rock, Arkansas. This became necessary when my proclamation of yesterday, calling upon the mob to disperse, was not observed.

Let me make very clear that Federal troops are not being used to relieve local and state authorities of their primary duty to preserve the peace and order of the community. In the present case the Federal troops are there to enforce the law. Our personal opinions about the Supreme Court’s decision that compulsory school segregation laws are unconstitutional have no bearing on the matter of enforcement. Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.

Adapted from a speech on the radio to the US nation from the White House by President Eisenhower, 24 September 1957, on the subject of Little Rock High School

SOURCE B

Those who would integrate our schools at any price are still among us. They have seized upon the present situation to promote and foment concern and discontent, because of the temporary closing of our schools. They are the people who all along have been opposed to the majority will of the people of Arkansas. Last year I stated during the September crisis that I was not elected Governor of Arkansas to surrender all our rights as citizens to an all-powerful federal autocracy.
The Supreme Court shut its eyes to all the facts, and in essence said – integration at any price, even if it means the destruction of our school system.

It is my responsibility, and it is my purpose and determination, to defend the constitutional rights of the people of Arkansas to the full extent of my ability.

Adapted from a speech by Governor Faubus in Arkansas, 18 September 1958

SOURCE C

Although the Supreme Court’s Brown v Board of Education decision had outlawed school segregation in 1954, few changes had actually occurred in schools. But there was a restlessness that was slowly building in the black community. Young blacks were profoundly influenced by memories of Emmett Till’s brutal killing in 1955 and Elizabeth Eckford walking alone to Little Rock Central High School. It was out of this festering discontent that the sit-ins of the 1960s were born. These would eventually attract national media attention and federal intervention in the South. Mass support was generated for the civil rights movement among all segments of the black populace.

Adapted from Eyes on the Prize, a book of documents, speeches and commentaries on American Civil Rights, published 1991