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Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Little Rock Crisis

100 min
  • Should President Dwight D. Eisenhower have used federal troops to enforce a federal court’s order to integrate schools in Little Rock, Arkansas?

Students will:

  • Understand the events leading up to and including the Little Rock Crisis.
  • Analyze President Eisenhower’s constitutional justification for his actions.
  • Assess the President’s decision to use military force to prevent violent opposition to a court order.

To create a context for this lesson, students complete Constitutional Connection: The President as Enforcer of the Law.

Have students read Handout A: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Little Rock Crisis and answer the questions.

Project the two Little Rock Crisis images available at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/24/little-rock-arkansas-school-segregation-racism

Ask students for their impressions of the images:

  • What are people doing? What are people NOT doing?
  • What kinds of expressions or attitudes do you see?
  • Are there law enforcement officers present? If so, do they seem to be working to stop the violence?
  • What do these images reveal about Little Rock at the time they were taken?

DAY ONE ACTIVITY [30 MINUTES]

Distribute Handout B: Document Based Question. With students working in pairs, or leading the class as a large group, read each of the documents and answer the scaffolding questions that follow each one.

As they progress through the documents, have students fill in the concept map on Handout C: Analyzing Documents.

DAY TWO ACTIVITY [50 MINUTES]

Give students the entire class period to write a well-organized essay in response to the Key Question.

Debrief the class about what they have learned about the events from the first three and a half weeks of September, 1957.

Ask students for their initial responses to the key question: How would they assess Eisenhower’s constitutional justification for using federal troops to enforce a court’s order to integrate?

Have students continue to annotate Handouts B and C as needed to prepare to answer the key question during the next class.

Have students read Eisenhower’s entire radio address and summarize its key points. The document can be found at www.c-span.org/video/?434366-1/president-eisenhower-speech-rock.

Have students research the lives of the Little Rock Nine: Carlotta Walls, Jefferson Thomas, Elizabeth Eckford, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Pattillo, Terrence Roberts, Gloria Ray, Minnijean Brown, and Ernest Green.

Student Handouts

Handout A: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Little Rock Crisis

Handout B: Document Based Question (Little Rock Crisis)

Handout C: Analyzing Documents (Little Rock Crisis)

Key Question Essay Prompt (Little Rock Crisis)

Related Resources

Video

Brown v. Board of Education | BRI’s Homework Help Series

4 Min

Brown v Board of Education was a case brought to the Supreme Court in 1954 after Linda Brown, an African American student in Kansas, was denied access to the white-only schools nearby her house. Future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was the lawyer for the case, and argued that segregated schools were inherently unequal. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Linda Brown and declared segregation unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment through incorporation under the premise that the bill of rights also applies to the states. This is one of the landmark cases that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.