This post was originally posted at FRS Daily Times, September, 2013

Dwight Eisenhower, America’s first civil rights president. Not Lyndon Johnson who was our third, after Jack Kennedy who got involved in it strongly late in his presidency. But President Eisenhower was our first because he took on segregation from the executive level before the 1960s and when the civil rights movement became strong.

By taking on civil rights at the federal and executive level, President Eisenhower immediately gave credibility to the movement. Especially by being in favor of it and against school desegregation, by essentially saying that “African-Americans have the same right to a quality education as Caucasian-Americans. And that government can’t force African-American kids to go to poor schools. When Caucasians are going to good public schools”.