ation of the "equal-protection" clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Southern whites were outraged, and they dubbed May 17 as "Black Monday."
Ninety Southern Congressmen issued the "Southern Manifesto" condemning
the Court decision as a usurpation of state powers. They said that the
Court, instead of interpreting the law, was trying to legislate.
Southern states resurrected the old doctrine of interposition which they
had used against the Federal Government preceding the Civil War. Several
state legislatures passed resolutions stating that the Federal Government
did not have the power to prohibit segregation. Other Southerners
resorted to a whole battery of tactics. The Ku Klux Klan was revived
along with a host of new groups such as the National Association for the
Advancement of White People. The White Citizens' councils spearheaded the
resistance movement. Various forms of violence and intimidation became
common. Bombings, beatings, and murders increased sharply all across the
South. Outspoken proponents of desegregation were harassed in other ways
as well. They lost their jobs, their banks called in their mortgages, and
creditors of all kinds came to collect their debts.

In 1955 the Supreme Court declared that its desegregation decision should
be carried out "with all deliberate speed." Southern school districts,
however, became experts in tactics of avoiding or delaying compliance. It
began to appear that each school board would have to be compelled to
admit each individual Negro student. Even then, some officials said that
they would never comply. They persisted in arguing that the Court had
overstepped its constitutional functions. Again, the constitutional
question of federal vs. state authority had come to a head just as it had
a century earlier.

In 1957, the governor of Arkansas openly opposed a court decision
ordering the integration of the Central High School in Little Rock. When
federal marshals were sent to carry out the order, Little Rock citizens
were in no mood to stand idly by and watch. Both the citizens and the
local officials were united in opposing federal authority. Everyone
watched to see what President Eisenhower would do in the face of this
challenge. On the one hand, Eisenhower and the Republicans had condemned
the increasing centralization of power in the federal government. On the
other hand, Eisenhower had been a general who had been accustomed to
having his subordinates carry out h