Mayor Woodrow Mann’s Telegram Requesting Federal Troops for Little Rock (1957)

Date: September 24, 1957

Created By: Woodrow Wilson Mann

Original or Replica: Original

Era: The Presidency, Civil Rights

Collection: Eisenhower Presidential Library

Citations: DDE’s Records as President, Official File, Box 615, OF 142-A-5-A (2); NAID #17366836

This document is a Western Union telegram sent by Mayor Woodrow Mann of Little Rock, Arkansas, to President Dwight D. Eisenhower on the morning of September 24, 1957, during the Little Rock Crisis. Sent only hours before President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10730, the telegram conveys the rapidly deteriorating situation in Little Rock and urgently requests immediate federal military assistance to restore order.

In the telegram, Mayor Mann reports that the crowd surrounding Little Rock Central High School had grown substantially larger than the previous day and that armed mobs were engaging in violence beyond the control of local police. Arguing that the city could no longer maintain law and order on its own, he pleads with the President to deploy federal troops immediately, asserting that swift federal action would restore peace, ensure compliance with the President’s proclamation, and uphold the rule of law.