What were the major events in the civil rights movement in the 1950s, and what role did the Eisenhower administration play in them?

The
biggest single event in the 1950s in relation to the civil rights movement was the landmark
Supreme Court decision in Brown v Board of Education (1954), which ruled
that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. President Eisenhower
was none too pleased at the Court's ruling, as he thought that the process of desegregation
should take place gradually over time. He was therefore reluctant to use his Presidential
authority to enforce the Court's ruling.

Yet after the authorities in
Arkansas openly defied the Supreme Court by maintaining segregation in their public schools,
Eisenhower realized that he no choice but to intervene directly. Using his authority as
Commander-in-Chief, he sent Federal troops into Little Rock to ensure that African-Americans
were able to attend schools that had traditionally been reserved for white students.

In subsequent years, Eisenhower's commitment to the civil rights cause would grow. In
1957, he signed a Civil Rights Act that made it possible for more African Americans to vote.
This came at a time when the vast majority of African Americans in the South were denied the
vote by all kinds of nefarious methods, not to mention outright intimidation by white
supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

In actual fact, the Civil Rights
Act of 1957 proved rather ineffective due to the many alterations made to the original Bill by
Southern Congressmen and Senators. It was largely in response to the inadequacies of the 1957
Act that Eisenhower signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which strengthened voting
rights protection by expanding the authority of Federal judges.