Governor Orval Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to prevent nine African-American students from attending Little Rock Central High School.

Orval Eugene Faubus was an American politician who served as the 36th Governor of Arkansas from 1955 to 1967, as a member of the Democratic Party. He is best known for the 1957 Little Rock Crisis, when he refused to comply with a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, and ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent black students from attending Little Rock Central High School. He was elected to six two-year terms as governor.

The Arkansas National Guard (ARNG), commonly known as the Arkansas Guard, is a component of the Government of Arkansas and the National Guard of the United States. It is composed of Army and Air National Guard units. The adjutant general's office is located at Camp Robinson MTC, North Little Rock.

The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. They then attended after the intervention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Little Rock Central High School (LRCH) is an accredited comprehensive public high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States. The school was the site of the Little Rock Crisis in 1957 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation by race in public schools was unconstitutional three years earlier. This was during the period of heightened activism in the civil rights movement.