Letter to President Dwight D. Eisenhower from Mrs. Jane Adkins Regarding the Integration of Schools
10/9/1957

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.
Text adapted from “Hear My Voice! Teaching Difficult Subjects with Graphic Organizers” in the special "Teaching Difficult Topics with Primary Sources" November/December 2011 issue of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) publication Social Education.Rights: Public Domain, Free of Known Copyright Restrictions. Learn more on our privacy and legal page.