Dig Deeper: Compare the different approaches to school desegregation by the Tennessee and Arkansas governors.

When trouble arose after Clinton High School was desegregated, Governor Frank Clement sent 600 National Guard troops and 100 highway patrolmen to Clinton to control the violence. This act ensured that the African American students at Clinton would be permitted to attend despite continued threats. 

 

Clement had run for governor as a segregationist. But in private conversations, Clement said desegregating schools was the right thing to do. Clement said “we are going to obey the law.” As the state’s chief law enforcement officer, Clement evidently felt it was his job to uphold the law and to protect both black and white citizens of Clinton.

 

At Central High School in Little Rock, Governor Orval Faubus, normally a moderate governor, worried more about reelection, and what voters might think. He called out the Arkansas National Guard troops to block black students from attending Central High School in Little Rock. Since it is the president’s job to uphold the laws, President Dwight Eisenhower intervened. The president nationalized the Arkansas Guard to protect the black students and allow them to go to the formerly all white school.