Mob Rule Cannot Be Allowed to Override the Decisions of Our Courts

Speech

By: Dwight D. Eisenhower

Date: September 24, 1957

Source: Eisenhower, Dwight D. "Mob Rule Cannot Be Allowed to Override the Decisions of Our Courts." September 24, 1957. Available online at <http://history matters.gmu.edu/d/6335> (accessed May 22, 2006).

About the Author: Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) served as president of the United States between 1953 and 1961. Prior to his election, Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe until the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945. He was also appointed the first Supreme Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949.

INTRODUCTION

The legal foundation for public school desegregation in Little Rock (and throughout the United States) was the Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, decided on May 17, 1954. The Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools, even where such practices created "separate but equal" educational institutions, was discriminatory and unconstitutional. To redress this, the Court declared that school desegregation should be accomplished 'with all deliberate speed.'

The Brown ruling was a watershed in American racial relations, igniting strong passions, particularly in Southern states, where desegregation efforts often met with stiff resistance and even violent confrontations. In Arkansas, the Little Rock school board had complied with Brown grudgingly, establishing a foot-dragging desegregation timetable in which full integration of all-white Central High School would not be complete until 1963. In September 1957, however, three years after Brown, a federal court ordered Little Rock's Central High School to admit black students immediately.

The events that unfolded were not entirely anticipated. Since Governor Orval Faubus's election in 1954, the city of Little Rock had desegregated its public transportation systems without significant difficulty. Arkansas was actually regarded as one of the southern states most receptive to integration. But when nine black students attempted to enroll at Central on September 3, 1957, a large and unruly mob of white protestors refused to let them enter the building. Despite the court mandate, Faubus cited fears of violence and called in the Arkansas National Guard to keep the black students out. He declared that "blood would run in the streets" if the black students were allowed into the school.

Eisenhower was determined to enforce the Supreme Court decision, and he met with Faubus in Rhode Island on September 14, 1957. Press releases were then issued that appeared to represent an understanding between the governor and the president that the court order would be enforced. The protestors at Central High School, however, continued their demonstrations in the week that followed, and Faubus continued to order the National Guard to prevent the students from entering the school.

A September 20 court ruling ordered Faubus to stop using National Guard troops to defy Brown, and the nine were finally admitted to Central on September 23. Violence continued both inside and outside the school, and by mid-morning, they were forced to leave.

In response, Eisenhower issued the first of two presidential proclamations unique in American peacetime history. In the first, issued September 23, 1957, "Obstruction of Justice in the State of Arkansas," Eisenhower directed anyone not complying with the Supreme Court order to desist. When it became apparent that the protests would continue, however, Eisenhower issued a second proclamation the following day that brought the confrontation to its peak. Federal troops were deployed to enforce the Court order and to ensure the nine students safe passage into the school. Later the same day, Eisenhower made the following television and radio address to the American people.

PRIMARY SOURCE

Good Evening, My Fellow Citizens: For a few minutes this evening I want to speak to you about the serious situation that has arisen in Little Rock. To make this talk I have come to the President's office in the White House. I could have spoken from Rhode Island, where I have been staying recently, but I felt that, in speaking from the house of Lincoln, of Jackson, and of Wilson, my words would better convey both the sadness I feel in the action I was compelled today to take and the firmness with which I intend to pursue this course until the orders of the Federal Court at Little Rock can be executed without unlawful interference.

In that city, 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 and, under the law, I yesterday issued a Proclamation calling upon the mob to disperse.

This morning the mob again gathered in front of the Central High School of Little Rock, obviously for the purpose of again preventing the carrying out of the Court's order relating to the admission of Negro children to that school.

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 is inescapable. In accordance with that responsibility, 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 was not observed, and the obstruction of justice still continues.

It is important that the reasons for my action be understood by all our citizens. As you know, the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that separate public educational facilities for the races are inherently unequal and therefore compulsory school segregation laws are unconstitutional.

Our personal opinions about the decision have no bearing on the matter of enforcement; the responsibility and authority of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution are very clear. Local Federal Courts were instructed by the Supreme Court to issue such orders and decrees as might be necessary to achieve admission to public schools without regard to race—and with all deliberate speed.

During the past several years, many communities in our Southern States have instituted public school plans for gradual progress in the enrollment and attendance of school children of all races in order to bring themselves into compliance with the law of the land.

They thus demonstrated to the world that we are a nation in which laws, not men, are supreme.

I regret to say that this truth—the cornerstone of our liberties—was not observed in this instance.

It was my hope that this localized situation would be brought under control by city and State authorities. If the use of local police powers had been sufficient, our traditional method of leaving the problems in those hands would have been pursued. But when large gatherings of obstructionists made it impossible for the decrees of the Court to be carried out, both the law and the national interest demanded that the President take action.

Here is the sequence of events in the development of the Little Rock school case.

In May of 1955, the Little Rock School Board approved a moderate plan for the gradual desegregation of the public schools in that city. It provided that a start toward integration would be made at the present term in the high school, and that the plan would be in full operation by 1963. Here I might say that in a number of communities in Arkansas integration in the schools has already started and without violence of any kind. Now this Little Rock plan was challenged in the courts by some who believed that the period of time as proposed in the plan was too long.

The United States Court at Little Rock, which has supervisory responsibility under the law for the plan of desegregation in the public schools, dismissed the challenge, thus approving a gradual rather than an abrupt change from the existing system. The court found that the school board had acted in good faith in planning for a public school system free from racial discrimination.

Since that time, the court has on three separate occasions issued orders directing that the plan be carried out. All persons were instructed to refrain from interfering with the efforts of the school board to comply with the law.

Proper and sensible observance of the law then demanded the respectful obedience which the nation has a right to expect from all its people. This, unfortunately, has not been the case at Little Rock. Certain misguided persons, many of them imported into Little Rock by agitators, have insisted upon defying the law and have sought to bring it into disrepute. The orders of the court have thus been frustrated.

The very basis of our individual rights and freedoms rests upon the certainty that the President and the Executive Branch of Government will support and insure the carrying out of the decisions of the Federal Courts, even, when necessary with all the means at the President's command.

Unless the President did so, anarchy would result.

There would be no security for any except that which each one of us could provide for himself.

The interest of the nation in the proper fulfillment of the law's requirements cannot yield to opposition and demonstrations by some few persons.

Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.

Now, let me make it 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. Nor are the troops there for the purpose of taking over the responsibility of the School Board and the other responsible local officials in running Central High School. The running of our school system and the maintenance of peace and order in each of our States are strictly local affairs and the Federal Government does not interfere except in a very few special cases and when requested by one of the several States. In the present case the troops are there, pursuant to law, solely for the purpose of preventing interference with the orders of the Court.

The proper use of the powers of the Executive Branch to enforce the orders of a Federal Court is limited to extraordinary and compelling circumstances. Manifestly, such an extreme situation has been created in Little Rock. This challenge must be met and with such measures as will preserve to the people as a whole their lawfully protected rights in a climate permitting their free and fair exercise. The overwhelming majority of our people in every section of the country are united in their respect for observance of the law—even in those cases where they may disagree with that law.

They deplore the call of extremists to violence.

The decision of the Supreme Court concerning school integration, of course, affects the South more seriously than it does other sections of the country. In that region I have many warm friends, some of them in the city of Little Rock. I have deemed it a great personal privilege to spend in our Southland tours of duty while in the military service and enjoyable recreational periods since that time.

So from intimate personal knowledge, I know that the overwhelming majority of the people in the South—including those of Arkansas and of Little Rock—are of good will, united in their efforts to preserve and respect the law even when they disagree with it.

They do not sympathize with mob rule. They, like the rest of our nation, have proved in two great wars their readiness to sacrifice for America.

A foundation of our American way of life is our national respect for law.

In the South, as elsewhere, citizens are keenly aware of the tremendous disservice that has been done to the people of Arkansas in the eyes of the nation, and that has been done to the nation in the eyes of the world.

At a time when we face grave situations abroad because of the hatred that Communism bears toward a system of government based on human rights, it would be difficult to exaggerate the harm that is being done to the prestige and influence, and indeed to the safety, of our nation and the world.

Our enemies are gloating over this incident and using it everywhere to misrepresent our whole nation. We are portrayed as a violator of those standards of conduct which the peoples of the world united to proclaim in the Charter of the United Nations. There they affirmed "faith in fundamental human rights" and "in the dignity and worth of the human person" and they did so "without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion."

And so, with deep confidence, I call upon the citizens of the State of Arkansas to assist in bringing to an immediate end all interference with the law and its processes. If resistance to the Federal Court orders ceases at once, the further presence of Federal troops will be unnecessary and the City of Little Rock will return to its normal habits of peace and order and a blot upon the fair name and high honor of our nation in the world will be removed.

Thus will be restored the image of America and of all its parts as one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Good night, and thank you very much.

SIGNIFICANCE

The federal troops arrived in Little Rock the next day. Eisenhower's intervention was bitterly attacked by forces on both sides. By late September 1957, however, the tensions in Little Rock had cooled to the point where eight of the nine black students who sought to enroll at Central High School had done so.

The Little Rock schools crisis began as a rearguard action by segregationists against the inevitability of school integration; the threatening and vociferous mobs that assembled at Central High School represented a large segment of the population in the South. Its primary significance, however, became subsumed in the larger question of state versus federal power.

When federal troops arrived in Little Rock after Eisenhower's second proclamation, cities and states throughout the South were galvanized into protest. The army was described variously as an invasion, an occupation, and an encroachment on local affairs. In light of other outstanding federal court rulings to integrate southern public high schools, fear was rife in many regions of the South that sending the army to Little Rock might be the first of many such federal acts against local governments to impose integration, instead of permitting it to occur at a pace determined by local government.

The legal issues at play in Little Rock continued to percolate for another year. The local school board sought a ruling to suspend further integration of the schools until the expression 'deliberate speed' had been further defined. A United States District Court in Little Rock granted the school board a two-andone-half year delay to continue with integration. This ruling was ultimately overturned on appeal; the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that integration continue in Little Rock schools without delay.

In response, Faubus closed all four Little Rock high schools in August 1959, on the premise that he wished to avoid further violence. City high school students were absorbed into the county school system. When the Little Rock schools reopened in 1959, the facilities were integrated. Protests that accompanied the reopening were visible and initially disruptive, but the situation gradually settled by 1960.

Faubus's central role is particularly significant in light of his political background. A liberal Democrat (his middle name, Eugene, was given to him in honor of Eugene Debs, an early leader of American socialism), Faubus had overseen the integration of Little Rock transportation services after his election as governor in 1954. It's likely, however, that he had a powerful motive to side with the segregationists; he feared that the local Democratic Party would not support his renomination as gubernatorial candidate in the 1958 elections. Faubus's popularity, however, remained undiminished, and he was reelected in successive terms until 1966.

Eisenhower's address on September 24 linked the rule of law and the supremacy of a federal court order. By using such terms as anarchy, mob rule, and extremism to characterize the actions of the Little Rock protestors, he indicated clearly that the debate about integration was over, settled beyond question by the nation's highest court, and to continue that debate in the form of violent protest violated the rule of law. Eisenhower also advanced his case in a remarkably nonpartisan fashion. As a Republican, however, he did not politicize the issue or mention Governor Faubus by name or deed, nor did he suggest that any partisan political forces were at work in Little Rock.

Eisenhower's suggestion that America's international image had been tarnished by the protestors' lawless actions linked the battle over school integration to the threat posed by America's Communist enemies, another key national concern of the Cold War (1946-1991) years. This is a clear appeal to those with no direct interest in the Little Rock crisis to side with the federal government as an act of patriotism.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Bates, Daisy. The Long Shadow of Little Rock: A Memoir. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1986.

Duram, James C. A Moderate among Extremists: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the School Desegregation Crisis. Chicago; Nelson-Hall, 1981.

Reed, Roy. Faubus: The Life and Times of an American Prodigal. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1997.

Web sites

Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. "Little Rock School Integration Crisis." <http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/dl/LittleRock/ littlerockdocuments.html> (accessed May 23, 2006).

University of Oregon. "Little Rock,1957: An Overview." <http://www.uoregon.edu/~jbloom/race/overview.htm> (accessed May 21, 2006).