Word: rocke
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...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...
...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 opening, Arkansas National Guard troops clanked into Little Rock. An hour later Orval Faubus appeared on television, explained that he had called out the militia to prevent violence...
Neither then nor thereafter did Governor Faubus consult with the man charged by the Arkansas constitution with keeping law and order in Little Rock: Mayor Woodrow Wilson Mann."There was no indication of unrest whatever," says Mann. "We had no reason to believe there would be violence." For one thing, Little Rock had worked out for itself a seven-year integration plan, carefully picking and choosing among the Negro students most likely to do well, so as to minimize the possibility of trouble in a city with better-than-average race relationships. Even so, to be on the safe side...
Even as Orval was basking in his new fame, pressures against him were building up. Across town from the executive mansion, U.S. District Judge Davies was reading a 400-page report prepared for him by the FBI, which had 50 agents comb the Little Rock situation. The report showed not a shred of evidence supporting Faubus' claim that Little Rock had been ripe for violence. Example: where Faubus had said Little Rock stores were selling out of knives and pistols ("mostly to Negro youths"), the FBI agents checked 100 shops, found that weapon sales had actually been below normal...
More Than He Could Handle. Faubus had other qualms. The political effect of his stand was not quite what he had expected. His old boss, Sid McMath, was busy rounding up liberals to denounce what Orval had wrought. Little Rock's respected Congressman Brooks Hays, top Baptist layman (president of the Southern Baptist Convention), checked with the city's leading citizens, found them shocked and ashamed...