↩ the History · a speech, filed

On the Situation in Little Rock

Dwight D. Eisenhower · broadcast from the White House · September 24, 1957
text: The American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara · a work of the United States government, in the public domain
colour carries the act's function; a dashed underline marks a predicted misfire; hover or focus any span for its filing

Good Evening, My Fellow Citizens:

For a few minutes this evening I want to speak to you about the serious situation that has arisen in Little Rock. To make this talk I have come to the President's office in the White House. I could have spoken from Rhode Island, where I have been staying recently, but I felt that, in speaking from the house of Lincoln, of Jackson and of Wilson, my words would better convey both the sadness I feel in the action I was compelled today to take and the firmness with which I intend to pursue this course until the orders of the Federal Court at Little Rock can be executed without unlawful interference.

In that city, under the leadership of demagogic extremists, disorderly mobs have deliberately prevented the carrying out of proper orders from a Federal Court. Local authorities have not eliminated that violent opposition and, under the law, I yesterday issued a Proclamation calling upon the mob to disperse.

This morning the mob again gathered in front of the Central High School of Little Rock, obviously for the purpose of again preventing the carrying out of the Court's order relating to the admission of Negro children to that school.

Whenever normal agencies prove inadequate to the task and it becomes necessary for the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to use its powers and authority to uphold Federal Courts, the President's responsibility is inescapable.

In accordance with that responsibility, I have today issued an Executive Order directing the use of troops under Federal authority to aid in the execution of Federal law at Little Rock, Arkansas. This became necessary when my Proclamation of yesterday was not observed, and the obstruction of justice still continues.

It is important that the reasons for my action be understood by all our citizens.

As you know, the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that separate public educational facilities for the races are inherently unequal and therefore compulsory school segregation laws are unconstitutional.

Our personal opinions about the decision have no bearing on the matter of enforcement; the responsibility and authority of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution are very clear. Local Federal Courts were instructed by the Supreme Court to issue such orders and decrees as might be necessary to achieve admission to public schools without regard to race--and with all deliberate speed.

During the past several years, many communities in our Southern States have instituted public school plans for gradual progress in the enrollment and attendance of school children of all races in order to bring themselves into compliance with the law of the land.

They thus demonstrated to the world that we are a nation in which laws, not men, are supreme.

I regret to say that this truth--the cornerstone of our liberties-was not observed in this instance.

It was my hope that this localized situation would be brought under control by city and State authorities. If the use of local police powers had been sufficient, our traditional method of leaving the problems in those hands would have been pursued. But when large gatherings of obstructionists made it impossible for the decrees of the Court to be carried out, both the law and the national interest demanded that the President take action.

Here is the sequence of events in the development of the Little Rock school case.

In May of 1955, the Little Rock School Board approved a moderate plan for the gradual desegregation of the public schools in that city. It provided that a start toward integration would be made at the present term in the high school, and that the plan would be in full operation by 1963. Here I might say that in a number of communities in Arkansas integration in the schools has already started and without violence of any kind. Now this Little Rock plan was challenged in the courts by some who believed that the period of time as proposed in the plan was too long.

The United States Court at Little Rock, which has supervisory responsibility under the law for the plan of desegregation in the public schools, dismissed the challenge, thus approving a gradual rather than an abrupt change from the existing system. The court found that the school board had acted in good faith in planning for a public school system free from racial discrimination.

Since that time, the court has on three separate occasions issued orders directing that the plan be carried out. All persons were instructed to refrain from interfering with the efforts of the school board to comply with the law.

Proper and sensible observance of the law then demanded the respectful obedience which the nation has a right to expect from all its people. This, unfortunately, has not been the case at Little Rock. Certain misguided persons, many of them imported into Little Rock by agitators, have insisted upon defying the law and have sought to bring it into disrepute. The orders of the court have thus been frustrated.

The very basis of our individual rights and freedoms rests upon the certainty that the President and the Executive Branch of Government will support and insure the carrying out of the decisions of the Federal Courts, even, when necessary with all the means at the President's command.

Unless the President did so, anarchy would result.

There would be no security for any except that which each one of us could provide for himself.

The interest of the nation in the proper fulfillment of the law's requirements cannot yield to opposition and demonstrations by some few persons.

Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.

Now, let me make it very clear that Federal troops are not being used to relieve local and state authorities of their primary duty to preserve the peace and order of the community. Nor are the troops there for the purpose of taking over the responsibility of the School Board and the other responsible local officials in running Central High School. The running of our school system and the maintenance of peace and order in each of our States are strictly local affairs and the Federal Government does not interfere except in a very few special cases and when requested by one of the several States. In the present case the troops are there, pursuant to law, solely for the purpose of preventing interference with the orders of the Court.

The proper use of the powers of the Executive Branch to enforce the orders of a Federal Court is limited to extraordinary and compelling circumstances. Manifestly, such an extreme situation has been created in Little Rock. This challenge must be met and with such measures as will preserve to the people as a whole their lawfully-protected rights in a climate permitting their free and fair exercise.

The overwhelming majority of our people in every section of the country are united in their respect for observance of the law--even in those cases where they may disagree with that law.

They deplore the call of extremists to violence.

The decision of the Supreme Court concerning school integration, of course, affects the South more seriously than it does other sections of the country. In that region I have many warm friends, some of them in the city of Little Rock. I have deemed it a great personal privilege to spend in our Southland tours of duty while in the military service and enjoyable recreational periods since that time.

So from intimate personal knowledge, I know that the overwhelming majority of the people in the South--including those of Arkansas and of Little Rock--are of good will, united in their efforts to preserve and respect the law even when they disagree with it.

They do not sympathize with mob rule. They, like the rest of our nation, have proved in two great wars their readiness to sacrifice for America.

A foundation of our American way of life is our national respect for law.

In the South, as elsewhere, citizens are keenly aware of the tremendous disservice that has been done to the people of Arkansas in the eyes of the nation, and that has been done to the nation in the eyes of the world.

At a time when we face grave situations abroad because of the hatred that Communism bears toward a system of government based on human rights, it would be difficult to exaggerate the harm that is being done to the prestige and influence, and indeed to the safety, of our nation and the world.

Our enemies are gloating over this incident and using it everywhere to misrepresent our whole nation. We are portrayed as a violator of those standards of conduct which the peoples of the world united to proclaim in the Charter of the United Nations. There they affirmed "faith in fundamental human rights" and "in the dignity and worth of the human person" and they did so "without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion."

And so, with deep confidence, I call upon the citizens of the State of Arkansas to assist in bringing to an immediate end all interference with the law and its processes. If resistance to the Federal Court orders ceases at once, the further presence of Federal troops will be unnecessary and the City of Little Rock will return to its normal habits of peace and order and a blot upon the fair name and high honor of our nation in the world will be removed.

Thus will be restored the image of America and of all its parts as one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Good night, and thank you very much.

The divergences

"Our personal opinions about the decision have no bearing on the matter of enforcement" — a hearer who wants the schools open files a Decoupling-flag that costs him the thing he needs most, since presidential opinion was the one instrument that could have moved Arkansas without soldiers; a hearer who wants the troops gone files an Assertion of neutrality, which leaves the merits open for the next case and reduces tonight to a bailiff's errand. They part on scope. The opinion being set aside is never stated anywhere in the speech, and "our" puts the hearer inside the same silence, so both filings are supported by what the text does not say.

"Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts" — the country outside the South files an Assertion about who was standing on Park Street; a Southern moderate who opposed the crowd and also opposed the intervention files a Frame-set, after which his own position files as disorder. They part on target: a claim about the sidewalk, or a construal that leaves two places to stand. The speech's own earlier sentences name city and State authorities and local police powers, parties that fit neither slot, and it never returns to them.

"Certain misguided persons, many of them imported into Little Rock by agitators" — set against "the overwhelming majority of the people in the South--including those of Arkansas and of Little Rock--are of good will." Southern readers file an Assertion that clears their neighbours and their state; the people who were in the crowd, and the ones who agreed with them from their porches, file a Palter that writes local men out of a local action. They part on orientation — whether the sentence reports who was there or protects a region's standing. "Imported" is the load-bearing word, and the speech supplies no count, no source, and no agitator's name.

"Federal troops are not being used ... Nor are the troops there ... the troops are there, pursuant to law, solely for the purpose of preventing interference with the orders of the Court" — the nine children and their parents file a Promise of protection at the door; Arkansas files a Decoupling-flag that limits the soldiers to one court order and returns the school to the School Board the moment it is satisfied. They part on scope, and every clause in the paragraph is passive. Troops are used, or not used; they are there. Across an address delivered as the 101st Airborne reached Little Rock, no sentence in it has the President sending them.

"There they affirmed 'faith in fundamental human rights' and 'in the dignity and worth of the human person' and they did so 'without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.'" — the world files a Report of the Charter; a listener who took the fourth paragraph at its word files a Frame-break, since the merits declared to have no bearing on the matter are stated here in full. They part on function: relay, or endorsement made deniable by attribution. The one statement in the address of what desegregation is for belongs to the peoples of the world, and the President who reads it aloud never says whether he agrees.

"If resistance to the Federal Court orders ceases at once, the further presence of Federal troops will be unnecessary" — Arkansas files a Promise of withdrawal and a date it can set itself; the school board and the children file a Threat read from the other end of the condition, the terms on which the soldiers stay. They part on function, and the sentence contains no first person. Troops become unnecessary the way weather clears. It is the only commitment in the speech about ending the deployment, and the only one the President declines to make in his own voice.

"Thus will be restored the image of America and of all its parts as one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" — one audience files an Assertion about reputation and hears the cold-war stake named plainly; another files a Surrogation, in which what is repaired is the picture and the pledge's own words describe an appearance. They part on target: the nation, or the nation's image of itself. The injured parties the speech names are the people of Arkansas and the nation in the eyes of the world; the children appear once, near the top of the address, as the object of a court order.