Although black leaders continued to seek further support from the White House, Eisenhower was unreceptive. The Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite on October 4, 1957, soon dominated the concerns of the administration; interest in civil rights sagged. In November, Martin Luther King Jr. asked if the president would receive a delegation of black leaders to discuss race relations. The request was denied. In January 1958, Eisenhower devoted his entire State of the Union speech to defense matters and the cold war, completely ignoring the extraordinary events in Little Rock.
