History glossary
National Guard
a military force that can serve under state or national authority.
- Category
- Civil rights
- Region
- United States
- Date range
- 1954–1968
What it means
A state governor normally controls the National Guard unless it is brought under federal command. In Little Rock, the governor used it to obstruct school integration before President Eisenhower took control of it.
Stories using this term
The French Revolution
From royal debt and social inequality to republic, terror, and Napoleon, the French Revolution dismantled the old order and produced the political ideas of citizenship, rights, and nationalism that defined the modern world.
The Civil Rights Movement
From school desegregation to Montgomery, Selma and Memphis, organised communities challenged racial exclusion and transformed American democracy.
