Which figure was the Arkansas governor who resisted school integration during the Little Rock crisis?

• A. George Wallace
• B. Dwight D. Eisenhower
• C. Harry S. Truman
• D. Orville Faubus

Answer: (D)

Orval Faubus was the Arkansas governor who resisted school integration during the Little Rock crisis. In 1957, he used the state National Guard to block nine Black students from entering Central High School, claiming it was to maintain order and state authority. This move prompted a federal response: President Eisenhower eventually federalized the Guard and sent in troops to enforce the desegregation order and protect the students, underscoring that federal authority superseded local efforts to block integration.

Context helps: the Little Rock Nine were part of the larger Civil Rights Movement and the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. The other figures—George Wallace, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Harry S. Truman—are associated with different events or roles in civil rights history: Wallace resisted integration in Alabama in 1963; Eisenhower was the president who ultimately enforced desegregation in this crisis; Truman initiated desegregation of the armed forces in 1948.