Word: faubusing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...itinerant farm hand, lumberjack. He ran for local offices (circuit clerk and recorder) and won, later wangled an appointment as postmaster. In 1948 he helped throw Madison County to liberal Sid McMath, who was elected governor. McMath named him to the nonsalary state highway commission, later responded to a Faubus plea ("I'm broke. I need a payin' job") by making him an administrative assistant at $5,000 a year. Orval Faubus moved to Little Rock-and (to him) the big time...
...Scheme for Security. Elected governor on a fluke in 1954, re-elected last year, Orval Faubus was right where he wanted to be. He was the chief executive of a sovereign state; he hobnobbed with political bigwigs; he was, at last, looked up to. Orval Faubus planned to stay in Little Rock. Politics had given him position and respectability; he had nothing to go back to. But how would he hang on? Arkansas has a strong tradition against a third term for a governor. Moreover, his popularity was slipping: he had raised taxes, alienated his liberal followers by granting rate...
Last Aug. 20, Orval Faubus set his plan in motion: he called Deputy Attorney General William Rogers in Washington, asked what the U.S. Government would do to prevent violence in Little Rock. Rogers said that it was primarily a matter for local law enforcement, but volunteered to send Arthur Caldwell, head of the Justice Department's civil rights section, to Little Rock. Caldwell, a native Arkansan, explained the law, outlined federal injunctive powers, asked Faubus why he thought there might be violence in Little Rock. Faubus replied that his evidence was "too vague and indefinite...
...Already Committed." Faubus lost no time playing politics: the very next day he went into a state court, testified that integration would mean bloodshed in Little Rock, won an injunction against it-which was promptly overruled by U.S. District Judge Ronald Davies. Then, the Sunday before Little Rock schools were to open, word came to adopted Arkansan Winthrop Rockefeller, chairman of the highly successful Arkansas Industrial Development Commission, that Faubus was going to call out the National Guard to stop integration...
Rockefeller rushed to the executive mansion, pleaded against the move for more than two hours, argued that it would give the state a bad name with industry. It was no use. A close Rockefeller associate quotes Faubus as saying: "I'm sorry, but I'm already committed. I'm going to run for a third term, and if I don't do this, Jim Johnson and Bruce Bennett [segregationists who are his probable opponents for governor next year] will tear me to shreds." That was it: at 9 o'clock on the eve of school...