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The Battle Of Little Rock, Shawn Fisher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1957, Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the integration of Little Rock Central High. In response, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent elements of the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock to ensure that nine black students could attend the school unmolested by a riotous mob. The Little Rock crisis is usually studied as a landmark event in the civil rights movement, but it can be further examined as key event in the Cold War, which illuminates several interesting aspects of the crisis. First, it reveals the background of the segregated Arkansas National Guard and the …