Orval E FaubusEdit
Orval Eugene Faubus (January 7, 1910 – December 14, 1994) was an American politician who served as the Governor of Arkansas from 1955 to 1967. A member of the Democratic Party, his tenure is best known for the controversy over desegregation during the civil rights era, most famously the Little Rock Crisis of 1957, when he used the Arkansas National Guard to block the entrance of nine black students to Central High School (Little Rock) in Little Rock. Faubus framed his actions as upholding state sovereignty, public safety, and orderly processes in the face of sweeping federal court orders to desegregate schools. The episode became a focal point in debates about the proper balance between States' rights and federal authority under the Constitution, and it shaped national conversations about civil rights and governance.
Faubus's rise to the governorship occurred within a period when many state leaders in the South stressed local control and a cautious approach to social change. His administration pursued a mixture of populist and conservative policies aimed at supporting rural communities, maintaining law and order, and ensuring local decision-making in areas such as education and taxation. In office, Faubus defended what he termed the rights of the people of Arkansas to determine their own policies within the bounds of the Constitution, while arguing that federal intervention should not override state processes or the duties of local governments to respond to the will of their citizens. Critics from the civil rights movement and its supporters characterized his stance as an obstruction to the legal and moral progress required by Brown v. Board of Education and other constitutional protections, while his allies argued that he was defending the principle that federal authority should not override state and local prerogatives in matters that historically had been controlled at the state level.
Early life and career
Faubus built his public profile in a context where rural Arkansas, small-town politics, and concerns about national upheaval in civil rights were converging. He presented himself as a defender of traditional community norms and as a practical administrator who emphasized order and fiscal responsibility. This orientation helped him win the governor’s office in the mid-1950s, a moment when the federal judiciary and federal authorities were pressing states to desegregate publicly funded institutions. The political environment of the time featured a broader national debate over the proper scope of federal power, especially in the realm of education and civil rights, which Faubus addressed by stressing local governance and the importance of public safety in Arkansas communities.
Governorship and the Little Rock Crisis
The Little Rock Crisis stands as the most cited event of Faubus’s tenure. In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education and subsequent federal efforts to enforce desegregation, Faubus ordered the deployment of the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the entry of nine black students to Central High School (Little Rock), arguing that maintaining order and respecting the constitutional process required time and local input. The national government responded with a strong assertion of federal supremacy in civil rights matters; President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce the court orders and ensure the students could attend classes, marking a dramatic intersection of state action, federal authority, and the rights of individual students. The episode intensified the national conversation about the balance between local control and federal civil rights enforcement, and it left a lasting imprint on how political actors framed the legitimacy of state versus federal power in the era of desegregation.
Supporters of Faubus’s approach argued that his actions reflected a legitimate use of state authority to protect public safety and to respect the due process and deliberative processes of Arkansas’s political system. They contended that the federal government had moved to compel rapid social change in a way that bypassed the will of local communities and risked unintended consequences for students, teachers, and schools. Critics, including many in the national civil rights movement and its allies, saw the moves as an unacceptable defiance of constitutional protections for all students and a direct challenge to federal court authority. The controversy thus framed a broader debate about how to navigate the tensions between integrating public institutions and preserving constitutional processes as interpreted by different levels of government.
The crisis also sparked discussions about the best strategies for progress in civil rights. From a right-leaning perspective, the emphasis on law and order, local deliberation, and the proper scope of state prerogatives was presented as a bulwark against what supporters characterized as top-down mandates that could produce social disruption without adequate local consultation. Critics countered that failing to enforce desegregation in a timely manner undermined constitutional rights and prolonged injustice. In the decades since, commentators on all sides have revisited these questions, weighing the merits of local control against the imperative of national justice.
Legacy
Faubus’s legacy in Arkansas and American politics is closely tied to the civil rights era and the ongoing debate over the balance between state sovereignty and federal enforcement of civil rights guarantees. The Little Rock episode is commonly cited as a turning point that highlighted how federal power could compel local governments to adhere to national legal standards, while also serving as a case study in how political leaders framed complex issues of public policy, order, and constitutional compliance. In the longer arc of American governance, Faubus’s insistence on local decision-making and his defense of orderly, constitutional processes are frequently juxtaposed with calls for more rapid national action to dismantle racial segregation. The episode remains a reference point in discussions about the proper role of state elective offices in sensitive social reforms and about how political systems respond to pressures for social change.