Arkansas holds a significant place in the narrative of Black heritage in the United States. From the era of slavery to the Civil Rights Movement and beyond, African Americans have played an essential role in shaping the state's history and culture. However, their contributions have often been marginalized as they confronted a society and polity controlled by white supremacists.
Early History and Slavery
Black people were first brought to Arkansas as slaves as part of French colonization in the 1720s. At the time of the first US census of Arkansas in 1810, they numbered 188, comprising roughly 18 percent of the population. The African American population of Arkansas would grow in proportion, comprising 110,000 and 25% of the population in 1860 on the eve of the American Civil War. African Americans lived throughout the state and were primarily made to work on cotton plantations; some were made to work skilled trades.
Living conditions were barely adequate for survival, and African Americans had a mortality rate 30 percent higher than the white population (although the mortality rate in Arkansas was slightly better than the national average for African Americans). Fugitive slaves were common, despite the risk of physical punishment.
Reconstruction Era (1865-1874)
Reconstruction in Arkansas was the period 1865-1874 when the United States government, using the Army, worked to rebuild the South and tried to ensure that the newly freed slaves were granted equal rights and protections under the law. When the Union army occupied the state in 1864, Blacks were granted legal freedom, and many began to work towards economic and social independence. They established their own schools, churches, and businesses, and after 1868 some were even elected to political office.
The Republican Party was dominant in Arkansas, and nearly all African Americans supported the party as it was seen as the party of abolition and emancipation. In 1868, the Arkansas State Constitution was rewritten to give Black people the right to vote and hold office, making Arkansas the first former Confederate state to do so. However, the Republican Party was deeply factionalized and spent much of its energy on internal battles.
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White supremacist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, were active in the state and used violence and intimidation to try to suppress Black voting and political power. In 1874, the Democratic Party regained control of the state government, and the era of Reconstruction came to an end.
Democrats worked to roll back many of the legal gains that Black people had made during Reconstruction, and Black political power in Arkansas was suppressed for nine decades to come.
The Reconstruction era in Arkansas was a time of significant progress for African Americans. Many Black people gained education and skills, and some were able to establish successful farms, businesses and careers.
After the conservative whites regained control of the state government in 1874, additional state funding for black schools was minimal. In 1912 Julius Rosenwald, multi-millionaire head of Sears, set up a program to fund black schools across the South.
Rosenwald School in Arkansas
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His Rosenwald Fund financed 389 public school buildings in forty-five counties in Arkansas. They included classroom buildings, shops, and teachers' homes. It gave $300,000 in an age when few blacks earned more than $100 a year.
The famous black educator Booker T. Washington helped Rosenwald design a program that stimulated local support. The state or county government owned and maintained all of the schools, and the land was usually donated by a white landowner. The local community was required to match the grant through cash, materials, or physical labor, so that the community would have a strong continuing commitment to the program.
In addition to the Rosenwald supported public schools, a number of northern Protestant missionary societies provided funds for schools for Blacks, as well as supplying teachers. The American Missionary Association, a northern Protestant charity, set up numerous schools for freed slaves all across the South starting in the Civil War. They operated 53 schools in 1868 in Arkansas. Some closed and the rest merged by 1878.
The Elaine Massacre (1919)
The Elaine Massacre was a violent racial conflict in 1919 that took place in Elaine, a village in eastern Arkansas with a population of about 400. Trouble began on September 30, 1919, when African American sharecroppers in the area met at a church to discuss ways to demand better prices for their cotton crops. The meeting was held by a local chapter of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America, a new organization dedicated to improving the economic and social conditions of black farmers in the South.
Word of the meeting spread, and local white planters became concerned that the sharecroppers were organizing to demand better wages and working conditions. A group of white men formed a posse and attacked the sharecroppers at the church. The ensuing violence lasted for several days, as white vigilantes and federal troops were brought in to suppress the sharecroppers.
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Estimates vary, but it is believed that anywhere from 100 to 240 or more African Americans were killed, while five white men were also killed. The aftermath saw hundreds of African Americans arrested. The twelve who were sentenced to death were eventually acquitted after the NAACP sent in a legal team.
Elaine Massacre 1919: A Dark Chapter in American History
Civil Rights Movement and the Little Rock Nine
During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, African Americans fought for an end to segregation and discrimination. The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine students who attended segregated black high schools in Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas. They each volunteered when the state NAACP, led by Daisy Bates, obtained federal court orders to integrate the prestigious Little Rock Central High School in September, 1957.
The Nine faced intense harassment and threats of violence from white parents and students, as well as organized white supremacy groups. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, claiming his only goal was to preserve the peace, deployed the Arkansas National Guard to prevent Blacks from entering the school. Faubus defied federal court orders, whereupon President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened.
Eisenhower sent in a 1200-man elite Army combat unit to escort the students to school and protect them between classes during the 1957-58 school year. In class, however, the Nine were teased and ridiculed every day.
In the city, compromise efforts failed and political tensions continued to fester. Supreme Court ruled that all the city's high schools had to be integrated immediately. Governor Faubus and the Arkansas state legislature responded by immediately shutting down all the public high schools in the city for the entire 1958-1959 school year.
The decision to integrate the school was a landmark event in the history of civil rights.
Civil Rights Trail
Arkansas has an important place on the stage of black heritage. Civil Rights Trail that includes over 100 attractions across 14 states includes sites from the civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s. Arkansas is included in this project. that is also a national historic site. This school was a major test of the Civil Rights Act when nine African-American students known as the Little Rock Nine integrated the all-white school. A visitor center across the street depicts this moment in history through exhibits.
The Mosaic Templars Cultural Center in Little Rock is also on the trail and sits on the foundation of a cornerstone of African American heritage. The center, whose mission is to preserve the history of African Americans in Arkansas, is located in the middle of what was once a thriving black business district for Little Rock. There were barbershops, restaurants, churches, doctors and lawyers, everything you could want, all on 9th street. The center is located at the corner of 9th and Broadway.
Other Sites in Arkansas
There are many other sites in Arkansas outside of the trail that pay homage to black history. Built in 1916, Taborian Hall was the cultural hub of the city's black community, and is the last remaining original building of a historic black business district once known as “The Line.” When it was built, it was headquarters for the Arkansas Chapter of the Knights and Daughters of the Tabor, a black fraternal organization.
The third-floor is home to the Dreamland Ballroom, which hosted many famous entertainers back in the day including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Ella Fitzgerald. Now the building is the headquarters of the business Arkansas Flag and Banner and the company is working to renovate Dreamland Ballroom.
For those wanting to explore outside Central Arkansas, there are many options including the Eddie Mae Herron Center in Pocahontas, a museum and education center that is home to nearly 200 years of local African American history. The center is housed in the former St. Stamps is a small town that was the childhood home of author Maya Angelou. She wrote about the town in her book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which received a National Book Award nomination. Angelou spent some of her childhood in the town in the home of her paternal grandmother, who ran the only African American general store in town.
Businesses in Arkansas
Businesses in Arkansas also play a role in our culture. The Carpenter family is a story of African-American success in the field of agriculture and Carpenter’s Produce is one of the most well-known produce spots in the state. It is open year-round and has fresh homegrown vegetables of all kinds, fish, smoked meats and more. They also provide produce for farmer’s markets.
Another longstanding store in Little Rock is K. Hall and Sons, a black-owned business near Central High School.
Recent Developments
In the decades since the Civil Rights Movement, progress has been made in the state, including the election of Black politicians to local and state offices, and the desegregation of schools and public spaces.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, Black women in Arkansas have been continued to be active in the struggle for civil rights. Women such as Daisy Bates, who played a significant role in the integration of Little Rock Central High School, and Lottie Shackelford, the first Black woman elected to the Little Rock City Board of Directors, helped to bring about significant change in the state.
The centuries-old remains of American Indians and what are believed to be former African American slaves have shared a common resting place near Little Rock for a long, long time. Descendants of both groups recently came together at the site near Little Rock, Arkansas to observe unmarked African American graves among prehistoric Indian mounds, and discuss what they might do together to learn more and preserve the unmarked graves.
Members of the Quapaw Tribe met with members of Preservation of African American Cemeteries (PAAC), along with Dr. John House of the Arkansas Archeological Survey and state Sen. Linda Chesterfield of Little Rock. The meeting sparked feelings of histories colliding-again, it seems-to provide a kind of closure.
“We feel like this is fate, in a way, because our tribal heritage and our ancestry especially here in Arkansas is very important to us,” said Chairman John Berrey of the Quapaw Tribe. “The fact that this particular discovery brought us together with another important group from Arkansas history made it a unique and special meeting.”
As a former teacher and a lifelong Arkansas history enthusiast, Chesterfield said she was touched by the meaning of the moment. “The history of African Americans and Native Americans are very much aligned here in Arkansas,” she said. “The Quapaws are especially interesting because while Africans were being brought here in slavery, the Quapaws were being taken into slavery by Europeans.”
“History put us together to do something that both groups felt strongly about and had been working on independently,” Tenpenny-Lewis said. “We have both answered the call.”
Carla Hines-Coleman, vice president of PAAC, said: “This was meant to happen in its own time and way. It feels wonderful to be part of it, and we are all excited to see what we can do together to make the most of the opportunity.”
The burial sites were discovered on land purchased by the tribe in 2013, which was part of the historic Thiboult Plantation near the Little Rock Port Authority, and, before that, part of the tribe’s historic Arkansas reservation. The tribe and PAAC wished to keep the burial site’s exact location unknown to the public because of the possibility of looters who might disturb the graves in search of historic artifacts, which Dr.
“This is a very special place on the landscape,” House said. “So much of Arkansas’ history is told only through the lens of what occurred after white Europeans came here. But there were centuries of prior history, very much of it involving the Quapaw Tribe and other Native American tribes.”
House estimated that the Native American graves at the site dated to between 1400 and 1600, while the African American graves in the same location probably date from before the Civil War to the early 1900s. He said it was not necessarily uncommon for a prehistoric grave site to serve as grave sites for later cultures. “What made it suitable for grave sites in earlier centuries made it suitable in more recent history as well, such as being on land that rises above the level of normal floods,” he said.
The Preservation of African American Cemeteries was founded in 2003 to create a network of persons and groups committed to locating, documenting and preserving previously unknown African American cemeteries.
The Quapaw Tribe is one of the main Indigenous Peoples of the state of Arkansas. They occupied areas spreading from Little Rock southward and eastward to the Mississippi River for centuries before white European explorers arrived in the 15th and 16th centuries.
“We look so forward to working with our new friends, and with Dr. House, to learn more about this particular site,” Berrey said.
The Arkansas Black History Advisory Committee, created by Act 1233 of 1991, is composed of seven (7) persons appointed by the Governor with the approval of the Senate. Quarterly meetings are held in the conference room of the Arkansas History Commission, One Capitol Mall, Little Rock, Arkansas 72201. The contact person is Dr. John L. We are interested in letters, diaries, journals, business records, photographs, church and lodge records, personal memoirs and anything else of a documentary nature that is related to African American history in Arkansas. Please contact us if you have such materials that you are willing to donate or lend for copying.
