Orval Faubus - Little Rock AK 49 years ago today

With a socialist upbringing in the mountains of Arkansas Orval Eugene Faubus was only 26 when he pitched for a seat in the State General assembly. With a background of fighting for women's votes, poll tax abolition his father Sam was a well known socialist and was once arrested in 1918 for "distributing seditious material" and "uttering numerous disloyal remarks".

After a tough war with General Patton's 3rd Army as an intelligence officer , Orval returned and joined the Democratic Party for whom he stood successfully as Governor. As a liberal he promised to increase spending on schools and roads. In the first few months of his administration, Faubus desegregated state buses and public transportation and began to investigate the possibility of introducing multi-racial schools.

This all came after Jim Johnson a right wing Democrat had challenged in court (Brown v Board of Education) the Supreme Court ruling on May 17, 1954 that separate schools for blacks and whites were unequal and therfore unconstituional.

The town of Little Rock hit the international headlines 49 years ago today, (Bill Clinton was 11 then) when Orval used the Arkansas National Guard to stop African-Americans, , the so called, "Little Rock Nine", from attending Little Rock Central High School as part of federally ordered desegregation of public schools.

President Eisenhower federalised the guards, taking them out of Orval's control and returned them to their barracks.Eisenhower then sent 1,100 troops (who had been trained in anticipation of this event) of the 101st Airborne Division to Arkansas to protect the black students and enforce the Federal court order.

School was conducted the entire year of 1957-58 with Federal soldiers on the school grounds and in the rooms and hallways of the Central building. Then the people of the Little Rock district voted to close the senior high schools rather than submit to another year of classes under the control of Federal troops or U.S. marshals. The senior high schools only remained closed for a year. All other schools operated normally. ... Classes were resumed in all Little Rock schools in the school year 1959-60.Little Rock, Pulaski County is now the home of the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library and was inaugurated November 2004 in the presence of 3 Presidents, Dubya, his dad and Jimmy Carter.

Re-elected 5 times Orval remained popular until beaten in the primaries in 1966 by his old right wing foe Jim Johnson who was defeated by the Republican Winthrop Rockefeller (on his second run at the post) son of John D and grandson of John Davison Rockefeller, Sr. founder the Standard Oil Company..

Paradoxically Orvals's nemesis politically had been appointed by him when he arrived in Arkansas as chairman of the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission (AIDC). It was after his arrival that Sam Walton's Wal Mart in Bentonville, Benton County, started in house deliveries to his stores and the company took off nationwide and simultaneously Tyson Foods gobbled up its competitots to become the nation's largest producer and distributor of protein.

It was of course Mr Tyson's shrewd advice about chicken futures that put a smile on Hilary Ridham Clinton's face and money in her pocket at the start of her political career with husband Bill.Both Tyson and Walton were clients of Hilary's employers the Rose Law firm of Little Rock, the proudest and "oldest law firm west of the Mississippi River".

Orval never fully explained his actions which were apparently , but inoccently anti-segregationist although later in life he talked of being tipped off about armies of white supremacists on the march to stop the nine black children attending school.

In the 1970s after failed attempts at a political come back, Faubus's financial position had deteriorated to the point where he was forced to accept a position as a bank teller at a local Huntsville, Arkansas bank and sell his home.

Faubus died of cancer on 14 December 1994.