I urgently request you to take a strong forthright stand in the little rock situation. If the federal government fail to take a strong positive stand at this time it will set the process of integration back fifty years. This is a great opportunity for you and the federal government to back up the longings and aspirations of millions of peoples of goodwill and make law and order a reality.

Description + Context: ​Excerpt from a telegram Martin Luther King Jr. sent President Eisenhower on September 9, 1957