Federal Troops Escort the Little Rock Nine into Central High
Governor Faubus blocks nine Black students with the National Guard, so Eisenhower sends the 101st Airborne to enforce Brown
Quick facts
- Location
- Little Rock Central High School, Arkansas
- Federal response
- 101st Airborne Division, federalized National Guard
- First Black graduate
- Ernest Green, May 1958
What happened
Little Rock's school board planned gradual integration of Central High School starting in the 1957-58 year, following Brown v. Board. On September 2, 1957, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus announced he would use National Guard troops to block nine Black students, Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Minnijean Brown, Thelma Mothershed, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls, Gloria Ray, Jefferson Thomas, and Melba Pattillo, from entering. On September 4 the Guard turned the students away. President Eisenhower met with Faubus on September 14 without resolving the standoff, and on September 23 the nine students entered the school under police escort only for rioting outside to force their withdrawal. On September 24 Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and ordered the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock; the next day, September 25, the Little Rock Nine attended their first full day of classes under armed federal escort.
Why it matters
Little Rock was the first time since Reconstruction that a president used federal troops to enforce Black civil rights against a defiant state government, showing that Brown's mandate would have to be forced onto the ground school by school. Ernest Green became the first Black graduate of Central High in May 1958.
How we know
The National Park Service documents the crisis day by day, including President Eisenhower's own telegram to Faubus and Faubus's public statements, held alongside oral histories from the nine students themselves.
Sources
- National Park Service. The 1957 Crisis at Central High · Primary source (author-declared)nps.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- National Park Service. The Little Rock Nine · Primary source (author-declared)nps.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
See something wrong? . Corrections with a source get fixed fastest.
Part of a timelineThe Civil Rights Movement30 events · How a movement built on churches, students, and lawyers dismantled legal segregation in America and split over how far nonviolence could carry itView all →