Military use during times of unrest

REPUBLICAN CLUB

By Brian Harmon

LW contributor

President Trump’s plan to use federal agents and even the military to deal with riots this past year was reminiscent of an event in the Eisenhower administration in 1957, over 60 years ago.

While Republican President Dwight Eisenhower was not faced with protests and riots in several cities at one time, he did deal with a problem in a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas.

The school was being racially integrated in response to a Supreme Court decision handed down three years earlier.

About 60 years before that, in 1896, the court had ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate but equal” public facilities such as railroad cars, schools, restaurants, and even toilets and drinking fountains were permissible In Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the court ruled unanimously that segregating the schools was unconstitutional.

Newly appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren, formerly the Republican Governor of California, ruled that school segregation violated the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment. The clause says that “No state shall… deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

In response to the court order, the Little Rock Board of Education ordered the gradual integration of the schools, starting at the high school level. Gov. Orval Faubus ordered the National Guard to prevent the nine Black students who had registered at the school, called the “Little Rock Nine,” to attend.

Federal Judge Ronald Davies ordered the governor to back down.

On Sept. 21, President Eisenhower sent in 1,200 members of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to enforce the judge’s order by escorting the students into the school on Sept. 25, 1957.

For those unfamiliar with military history, the 101st Airborne is the most decorated military unit in the history of the United States. The movie “Band of Brothers” was based on their exploits in World War II.

Although the Little Rock Nine were repeatedly victimized by white students at the school, they set the stage for the integration of schools throughout the country.