Fifty years ago, Republicans overcame Democrat racism at Little Rock

Grand Old Partisan (Blog), September 24, 2007, by Michael Zak,

On this day in 1957, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower ordered federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas.

In September of that year, a few days after passage of the Republican Party's 1957 Civil Rights Act, Orval Faubus, the Democrat Governor of Arkansas, ordered the state National Guard to prevent the court-ordered segregation of a Little Rock public school. At first, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower tried to negotiate with Faubus, but after several fruitless weeks the President lost patience with his Democrat foe. Eisenhower had not been afraid to take on the Nazis, and he certainly was not going to be fazed by Faubus or any other Democrat challenging the Constitution.

On the advice of his Attorney General, Herbert Brownell, Eisenhower placed the Governor's soldiers under federal government control and ordered the 101st Airborne to Arkansas. Senators Lyndon Johnson and John Kennedy publicly criticized the President for enforcing a federal court order. Many Democrats actually compared the President's act to the Soviet invasion of Hungary the year before.

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of this great Republican achievement to protect African-Americans from their Democrat oppressors.

Your contacts may appreciate this link to the story here on Grand Old Partisan, each day celebrating 153 years of Republican heroes and heroics. The article is adapted from Back to Basics for the Republican Party.