The desegregation of Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, was arguably the galvanizing event of the civil rights movement up to that time. The 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and Rosa Parks' now-legendary act of defiance rightly gained national attention. But the sight of troops from the 101st Airborne Division, rifles at the ready, arrayed outside a public school angered enough Americans, black and white, that the eventual desegregation of schools everywhere suddenly felt inevitable--if not exactly imminent.