Assignment task: How do events at Little Rock High School in 1957 reveal the approach to civil rights practiced by the Eisenhower administration? How did Little Rock shape the civil rights movement?
Ideal Answer: The ideal answer should:
1. Explain that Eisenhower was a racist whose approach to the civil rights movement was to respond only to blatant violations of the federal supremacy of the executive branch,.
2. Note that this was proven in the case of Eisenhower's dispatch of the U.S. Army to suppress the Arkansas National Guard ordered out to stop black youth from integrating Little Rock High School in 1957.
3. Conclude that the Little Rock incident helped to further polarize southern whites from the federal government and blacks in the civil rights movement. Other southern states dug in their heels and resisted desegregation of public schools.