On September 24, 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and ordered the Secretary of Defense to use these and other troops to effect the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School. The following morning, elements of the 101st Airborne Division surrounded the school and escorted a group of nine neatly dressed Black teenagers through an angry, jeering crowd to begin the fall term. This was the first major confrontation over implementation of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954).

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Information courtesy of the National Park Service.