Eisenhower and Civil Rights

Name

Course

University

Tutor

Date

Dwight David Eisenhower was the thirty fourth president of the United States , serving between 1953 and 1961 . Born in 1890 in Texas , he would go ahead to become one of the greatest presidents of the United States and one of the most able army general America has ever witnessed . His major accomplishments as the president of the United States internationally include initiating a ceasefire in the Korean War starting the space race during the cold war among many others Domestically , he is touted

for his apt policies and for energizing the struggle towards the fight for civil rights to the minority communities in the United States

Eisenhower plunged into politics after his notable successes in the Second World War that would see him emerge an American hero . He was urged by the Draft Eisenhower Movement to delve into politics and run against the Republican Robert Taft . Americans by then had become fatigued by the Korean War and confusion was rife in the air . Eisenhower was touted as a possible candidate and he went ahead to clinch the presidency against the democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson . He was elected on a platform of radical shift from Truman 's policies especially his stand on the Korean War . He also pledged to address civil rights for all American citizens and maintain an efficient administration that was devoid of corruption

The attention of President Eisenhower towards the intricacies of civil rights would be drawn by the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in the Brown v Board of Education of Topeka . This was a notable accomplishment in the history of the civil rights campaigns . The supreme court made a ruling overturning a century old ruling in the 1890 Plessey v Ferguson which had ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment was not violated by the segregation policy in place because both the blacks and the whites were equal , only that they received segregated facilities . In the Brown v Board of Education of Topeka , the plaintiffs were arguing that the racial segregation system was unfair to the blacks as it ended up providing them with inferior facilities compared to their whites counterparts . The Supreme Court in its ruling declared the segregation unconstitutional and as against the equal protection clause . Hostility immediately broke out in the various states towards the south and Eisenhower had to a federal troops crackdown . His most notable instance of decisiveness would come upon his to the troops to stop the efforts of the then Arkansas Governor Arval Faubus who was blocking black students from entering the Little Rock High School contrary to a court . Though Eisenhower actions were likely to have some minor political ramifications due to the mounting displeasure in the south , it would remain an important moment in his presidency and would re-ignite the activism for civil rights that were to follow . It is this court 's decision and Eisenhower 's unshakeable belief in the retrogressive nature of the segregation policy that would inspire the...