Hays, Brooks

Description

Article in U.S. News and World Report based on excerpts from Hays' book A Southern Moderate Speaks Inside Story of Little Rock ... "I was tormented by the fact that my home city was drifting toward a crisis. A head-on clash between State and federal authority seemed imminent.... Nothing was being done to avert it" of a disturbance at the school would not of itself provide any basis for action by federal authorities. He made a distinction between this case and the one in Clinton, Tenn., in which a federal-court order enjoining certain people from interfering with the plan being carried out there was violated and the judge called on the assistance of the Justice Department to make the order effective. It was in this context that a suit was filed in the Arkansas Chancery Court by the newly formed Mothers of Central High League to stop the implementation of the school-board plan. On Thursday, August 29, Governor Faubus appeared before Chancellor Murray O. Reed as a witness in support of the prayer for an injunction. He testified that "violence, bloodshed and riots" would result if the integration began as scheduled, and cited the increased sales of knives and revolvers to Negro and white students. While he failed to give any specific information, the chancery judge nonetheless granted the petition for an injunction. The school board immediately appealed to the federal district court for an order prohibiting the State court from interfering with the efforts of the board to go...

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Brooks Hays Materials

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University of Arkansas