Dwight D. Eisenhower

De: Richard V. Damms

Narrado por: Sean Runnette

Dwight D. Eisenhower earned public acclaim during World War II as supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe. The first Republican since Herbert Hoover to occupy the White House, “Ike” planned to hold the line against further expansion of federal powers. He worked assiduously to avoid being dragged into the school desegregation issue, believing in a “gradual­ist” approach to eliminating racial discrimination. Eisenhower helped steer the Supreme Court toward a middle-ground “with all deliberate speed” approach in Brown v. Board of Education II and hoped to allow states and local communities to work out the desegregation issue themselves. When the governor of Arkansas refused to allow black children to attend public school in Little Rock, however, Eisenhower was forced to send in National Guard troops to restore order. In the end, Eisenhower’s commitment to “gradual­ism,” albeit well-intentioned, allowed those dedicated to preserving segre­gation to advance their agenda, ushering in the period of violence and civil rights protests that would plague the nation in the 1960s.

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