President Eisenhower privately sympathized with segregationist parents before the Brown decision

Evidence

At a White House dinner, Eisenhower invited his newly appointed chief justice, Earl Warren, and grabbed a seat next to the eminent lawyer defending the segregationists, John Davis, someone the president repeatedly praised as “a great man.” On a stroll to the coffee table, Eisenhower told Warren he could understand why southerners wanted to make sure “their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big black buck.” — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 925

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Antibusing forces framed their cause as upholding Brown’s color-blind principle rather than as resistance. — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 99; Congressional funding incentives, not Brown alone, produced Southern school desegregation. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1550; After Roe the Court stayed active policing abortion law, unlike after Brown. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1621 (+2 more)