On September 4, 1957, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to block nine African American students from entering Little Rock Central High School. The students, later known as the Little Rock Nine, had enrolled as part of a federal court–ordered desegregation plan that followed the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision. Crowds of white protesters gathered outside the school as the Guard turned the students away, an image that was broadcast across the nation. The confrontation highlighted Southern resistance to school integration and created a constitutional crisis between state and federal authorities. Later that month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce the students’ right to attend school, demonstrating federal commitment to civil rights.
