Background
President Dwight Eisenhower took office in January 1953, at the beginning of a decade which would see the emergence of the African-American civil rights movement onto the stage of the national media. That movement would achieve great things during this decade, and “Ike” Eisenhower was a part of that accomplishment.
He would go on to start a great movement by showing support from the government that African Americans' civil rights was not going to go unnoticed anymore. There were two executive decisions he made that would change the nation. The first one was the appointment of Jesse Ernest Wilkins. Born in 1894, Wilkins was the first African-American to be appointed to a sub-cabinet level. Eisenhower displayed to America that it was not he color of your skin that decides your fate but your hard work, determination, and your education that should be the deciding factor. Shortly after appointing Wilkins, Ike attended a meeting of the NAACP. On March 11, 1954, the New York Times reported that President Eisenhower said he believed in President Lincoln’s statement that this nation was dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal and with the writers of the Declaration of Independence that all men were endowed with certain inalienable rights. There are vociferous minorities that do not hold to the concepts set forth by the Founding Fathers, the President said, and added: “But by and large the mass of Americans want to be decent, good, and just and don’t want to make a difference based on inconsequential facts of color or race.” Appointing Wilkins to the highest post ever occupied by an African-American, was a strong statement about how the Eisenhower administration would promote civil rights during the 1950s. |
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Little Rock Crisis The second most import action President Dwight Eisenhower was the decision he made in regards to the Little Rock Crisis. The governor of Arkansas, armed National Guardsmen to prevent nine African-American students from attending the all-white Central High School in Little Rock even after a Federal District Court ordered the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, to allow African-American students to attend in 1957. When African-American students attempted to enter the school on September 4, 1957, a crowd of several hundred angry and belligerent whites confronted them and a full scale riot erupted.
Eisenhower knew he had to act boldly. He placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal control and sent 1,000 U.S. Army paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division to assist them in restoring order in Little Rock. |